Yes There Is
I lost count, somewhere around the age of 25, how many times people have stated, “There are not enough hours in the day!” or some similar saying to it. There may be no other saying I hate more than this one, I don’t even think there is a close second, well except “Sorry dad, I forgot to do my homework!” when we are on the way to school. I am going to mix in some math, some logic and some opinion. I ask you read this with a smile, and some thought, and if you are offended by anything, well I likely meant it 😉.
Let’s look at that statement from a math standpoint. Let’s just assume a month of 30 days, there is 720 hours in that month. Let’s say you sleep 7 hours per day (at best right), that’s 210 hours of sleep, let’s even go with you work 50 hours over the 4 weeks in a month, that’s another 200 hours, leaving you with 310 hours to do other stuff besides work and sleep. I know many of us have kids, family, friends, carpools, sports/activities to watch or be involved in, but come on, I will even give you 90% of your time is booked, which I think is high but that means in any given month, you have 31 hours to do whatever you want. Is there anything on your “want” list you can’t do in 31 hours? Maybe, but 31 hours a month over a year is almost 375 hours. Your welcome, I just found you an additional 375 hours per year to do what you used to say “Not enough hours in the day” to do.
Let’s now move onto logic. Whether you do what you want to do, what your kids ask you to do, what your boss asks you to do or whatever else you are doing, you are doing something in those 375 hours per year. It could be watching Netflix, watching sports, playing golf, whatever. So I would say, you are choosing to do “something” in those hours. You prioritized something(s) in those hours, so my logic here is pretty simple. There is nothing you can’t do, that you are capable of doing, and the only reason you didn’t do it is because you prioritized something else, besides what you didn’t do. So I am asking you to change your statement from “Not enough hours in the day” to “I made other things a priority over doing that?”. My logic is if you say this new statement moving forward — when your boss asks you to finish a project, or your spouse asked you to do something around the house, or you feel you would like to golf more — you will realize there are times where you will prioritize what you could be doing versus wasting time doing something that is not as important.
So now onto my opinion. If you say this new phrase, and still don’t do something, you will simply realize you should never have agreed to what you said you would do, that used to make you say “Not enough hours in the day”. You will think “Is this really a priority for me?” at the time someone asks you for something. You will look at future tasks/responsibilities/time needed, and think about how important, at that time, something is. It will change your outlook, in my opinion, on how you interact with the people around you. At times, it may seem harsh, by saying, “sorry I can’t do that because it just isn’t a priority for me”. Come on, that is better than saying, “sure, I will do that” knowing you will never do it or get to it and that person comes back looking for it, empty handed. You will then make that other person, look for someone else to do it. Is this process easy, certainly not, but much more effective and allow you to focus only on those things that matter most to you or allow the other person a period of time to explain why that task is more important that you originally thought. While people will look puzzled sometimes, you won’t disappoint in the end by failing to perform said task.
Now, go give it a try. Good luck and remember, harsh is better than disappointed.
