‘I Don’t Have Time’ Is Not the Real Problem

Are you making excuses?

I was recently talking to one of my students who took my course on productivity and overcoming procrastination.

She mentioned that she wanted to start a blog for 10 years! But she never took any action. And she eventually wanted to give up her goal. “Maybe it’s time to move on,” she said.

I can relate to that because I wanted to write for almost a decade before I actually started. I tried several different things and even tried my hand at writing fiction. But my goals never really materialized.

This is something almost everyone I know can relate to. Maybe you want to build a business, write a book, start a podcast, create an app, build a stock portfolio, but you never actually got around to doing it. Why is that?

Sometimes we say, “I just don’t have time! I’m so busy!” But that’s not true. We can always make time for important things. The problem isn’t time, it’s something else.

I realized this when I was watching a video from Zig Ziglar, who wrote more than 30 books, and created some of the best books on sales training in history. He said:

“Lack of direction, not lack of time, is the problem. We all have twenty-four hour days.”

Understanding why we are stuck

When we’re stuck in life or feel that we’re unproductive, we often try to force ourselves into action. We think we need more willpower or motivation to get going.

One of my friends has been going through the same productivity pattern for as long as I know. Every now and then, he gets super inspired to change his life and start working on his goals.

He wants to do everything at the same time: Get in better shape, wake up early, meditate, change his diet, read more, and build a side-business as a freelance designer.

Guess what happens after a few highly productive weeks? He starts off energetic, but he always comes crashing down. Depending on where he is on his up and down cycle, he’s either super excited or totally stuck, and just wasting a lot of time.