Finding the Time

The new year is a great time to review and reset your work, life and athletic goals. Where do you want to go? What is working? What is NOT working? How do I begin? And perhaps the biggest question of all – how do I find the time?

While pondering this question, I happened to get an email from David Hieatt, founder of The Do Lectures. Check them out here. The topic? How to achieve more while not working longer or harder. Sounds like a fad, right? And yet, it happens to be completely possible for ordinary mortals like you and me to achieve.

The secret, you ask?

Get rid of being “busy”.

How do you grow your business? By working harder? Working harder just means working more. Which means you have less time with family, for self care, for exercise, for sleep. Sounds like a loss overall, if you ask me.

David proposes something radical. Instead of focusing on doing more things, try focusing on things you can choose NOT to do.

In fact, he proposes making a NOT TO DO list.

The idea is that you choose to spend your time on the things that will have the most impact. The rest you either automate, hire out or simply don’t do.

Ask yourself these questions:

What do you need to get rid of?

What is the important stuff?

The important stuff is the stuff that moves the needle toward your goals. And it’s probably the stuff you’re really good at, or most enjoy doing.

So be ruthless in deciding what moves you toward your goals and what keeps you away from them. And only do stuff that moves you forward.

Discard everything else.