By Have you ever said to yourself?
“Oh, if only there were more hours in a day, or another day in the week, then I could get it all done?”
Let’s be honest, even if there were more hours in the day, you probably still wouldn’t get it all done. We don’t really need more time; we need to make better use of the time we have.
More than any other word, “overwhelmed” captures the state in which most of us find ourselves. There’s simply too much to do and not enough time to get everything done. *
The Oscar-winning movie, “Crash,” aptly details how we are all so involved in our everyday lives that we really never notice – let alone care about – anyone else … unless we crash into each other. We have no time to care or to even think about having time to care. *
We are on the verge of collapse but have not found the time for that either.
Let us start by looking at the relationship we have with time.
Do we own our time or does time own us? Another way to look at is to ask ourselves are we “busy” or “productive” with our time.
People tend to work harder at getting ahead to complete their workload, ultimately creating more interactions, more timelines, more meetings and more follow up, all resulting in overwhelm. This cycle is what we a “vicious circle” at Awesome Journey, as illustrated below.
There are a few steps that we can support our leaders with, to break this vicious circle.
A big one is learning what gets in the way of a leader saying no.
“The difference between successful people and really successful people is that really successful people say ‘no’ to almost everything.” Warren Buffett
Challenge: For the next two (2) weeks journal each night on how your relationship to time was for that day.
- Where did I automatically commit to tasks and experience overwhelm as a result? –
- Where did I say no to avoid overwhelm?
Did time own you or did you own your time?
*Courtesy of – Tony Zampella of Bhavana Learning Group.
