Blog

Not Having Enough Time: We are always busy – too many things clamouring for attention. This makes managing time and stress very difficult. However, it is a pertinent problem – big enough to ensure that we must do something about it. Or else we constantly run a risk of being overwhelmed, stressed and not having enough time for the things that we want to do.

How to deal with Not Having Enough Time

By design and nature of our lives, we will never have enough time for all the things that we need to do. The first problem is that we have too many things to do. The second problem is that each of these problems seems equally important and urgent. If it is not important or urgent to you, someone else will add pressure saying that it is important for them. The main problem we have to solve is to manage these expectations without compromising the things that are most important to you. The reason for this is that unless you do things that are important to you, you’ll never get the satisfaction or enjoy the pleasure of doing the things.

Prioritise

This is the main part of managing time during your day. Start with prioritisation – unless you do this, everything will feel important and suddenly you’ll be overwhelmed by demands and in response mode. In such a stage, you’re so focused on efficiency that you can’t stop to think whether it is as important as it is made to seem. So, take time and build the priority list. Find a way to make it objective so that something else doesn’t take over this without proper due diligence. The Eisenhower Matrix is a great way to start prioritising things based on their importance or urgency.

Delegate, Defer

This is an important tactic to ensure that you have more time during the day. You must accept the fact that you can’t do everything yourself. But with the help of a team, you’ll be able to achieve the wider goals more effectively. The 4D’s framework helps create a strategic approach to finding more time for yourself. The goal of this process is to ensure that we don’t do everything. If you’re new to this, I’d encourage you to do as little as possible so that you get a hang of tuning the framework to suit your needs.

Delete – Don’t do some things

The way to defeat the feeling of not having enough time is by not doing some things. We all find it hard to say no – either because we don’t want to make others feel bad or because it goes against our principles of being helpful to people. But time management is about being fair to yourself and protecting your time for the things that you ignore but are important. Practice the art of saying no – remember the Pareto rule that tells us that 80% of our results come from 20% of the effort. Don’t waste your time on low-value outcomes.

You will never have time for anything. If you want time, you must make it! – Charles Buxton (Source)