Last week we started our new series, The Stories We Tell Ourselves and What to Do Instead,” discussing the issue of feeling that we just don’t have enough time. Go here to refresh your memory.
Stories We Tell Ourselves: I Don’t Have Enough Time (Part 1)
One of our goals throughout this series is to discover ways to transform some of our more comfortable, least useful age-old stories into empowering stories that will help us move forward in the ways we want.
Today’s Self-limiting Story:
● “I don’t have enough time.”
Alternative Enabling Stories:
● “I have time to complete my most important tasks.”
● “My schedule frees me from the pressures of time.”
● “I refuse to let time rule my life.”
● “I get things done without worrying about time.”
● “I get the things done that are important to me.”
The best way to make these newfound empowering stories real for ourselves is, obviously, to begin our days with a plan that will allow us to prioritize things and work on the thing that matters to you the most FIRST thing in the day, if possible. For you, this may translate into the FIRST thing you do when you get home from work.
This may mean that we take a few minutes at night to plot out the next day’s tasks, and then prioritize them. Or make our list first thing in the morning before the day runs away from us. I have used both these methods but generally find that setting my course the night before helps me make a smooth transition into the morning. By making quick progress on the tasks that matter most, we feel more productive. And we can bury the old story.
Become a Dragon-Slayer
In other words, you “slay” your most important task, your “dragon,” first. We should attack this main, important issue before we get started on the thousand other tasks that vie for our attention. Learn to give your full, undivided attention to the one thing that matters the most to you.
By doing your most important thing first, you rewrite the old story that there is not enough time in the day to work on what matters.
Our new story becomes: “There is plenty of time to do what matters because I work on what matters first.”
How To:
● Write down all the tasks you need to perform each day.
● Organize those tasks by importance.
● Determine your most important task for the day.
● Give all your attention to working on that task until you have completed it or come as close as you can to completion.
● Rinse and Repeat the process the next day. Then the next…
Affirmation
Some people work well with affirmations. Here is a short one. Feel free to type it out and place it somewhere you will see it often. When I use them, I tape them to my bathroom mirror and to my desk so I cannot “avoid” them.
- There is more than enough time in each day for me to accomplish the tasks that matter most. I refuse to be easily distracted. I do less important things later, after I finish the task that matters most. I am passionate about getting things done that are important to me.
A word of caution.
Don’t get so locked into your rituals that you cannot change them when they obviously are not working for you. I went through this with my writing recently. I had a ritual that worked marvelously for over a year. But as the ritual started to fall apart, and became stale, I resisted changing it for several months. Now, I have learned to listen to the cues better and become more flexible.
Next Time:
Next time, we will talk about never being too old to start a new project, begin a new journey, set a new goal.
Please leave comments below.
Live (Zoom) Reading on Sunday, February 20, 2022, @ 3 pm EST
Follow the links on the Cultivating Voices page to register for your zoom link. The reading will also be live on Facebook.
Chat soon
Martina
Related
Stories We Tell Ourselves: I Worry About What Others Think About Me, part 2
Stories We Tell Ourselves: I Offer Love, Compassion, and Understanding to everyone except me. Why not? pt 1
Stories We Tell Ourselves: I Offer Love, Compassion, and Understanding to everyone except me. Why not? pt 2
Affirmation for Today: I Move Toward Balance
[…] In the last blog, you talked about the misconception of not having enough time. We also discussed some tools to use to disabuse ourselves of that excuse. There is enough time to do what is important to us. Read that blog post here. […]