Using What Time You’ve Got

30 Apr Using What Time You’ve Got

Sometimes we need a small reframe to take that next step.

When you don’t have as much time as you want, will you choose to waste it or use it?

I got into a poor routine the last few weeks with my travel schedule being nuts. I found that I was on-the-go most of the day, chipping away at key tasks and trying to “squeeze” in a workout where I could.

Maybe you can relate to the feeling of telling yourself you’re going to get it in at “this” time – then you don’t, so you push it later.

And later.

Then you get to the end of the day or butting up against another commitment and you see 30-minutes left on the clock.

Crap.

Perhaps the first response is: I can’t get to the gym AND workout in 30 minutes. I guess I’m going to just skip until tomorrow.

Or maybe it’s I don’t have enough time to do what I need to so I’ll just keep working on this other thing.

We tell ourselves we don’t have the ideal situation to workout (or work on a goal, or read, or make a sales call) so we simply don’t do it.

We justify our failure to ourselves that we just didn’t have enough time.

I’ve done that before. Maybe you have too.

But what I’ve learned is that even though we can’t do everything we want, we still get the choice to do or not do something.

So last week, when I found I only had 20 minutes it – far less than I wanted to warm up and workout – I made myself do it.

100 burpees here.

Squats and shoulder presses there.

I packed in a quick workout – even some for just 7-10 minutes – to make sure I kept my daily streak going. One afternoon I posted this small reminder about a Champion’s ability to do what you can even if it’s not exactly what you want.

Twenty minutes doesn’t seem like enough time to get it all in – but you want to know what twenty minutes is enough for?

Making progress on your goal and putting yourself in a better starting position tomorrow than if you’d done nothing. 

Sometimes you’re not gonna have as much time to get what you want done, but will you still use it? 

We all have that voice in our head that tries to tell us…

• Just skip today.
• Just put it off for tomorrow. 
• Don’t work on that stuff that you need to do for work.
• Don’t spend that time reading that book, you only have 10 minutes. 

Listen – 10 or 20 minutes, heck, even FIVE minutes of work will put you in a better position tomorrow than you were today.

1. It moves you closer to your goal.

2. It reinforces your identity as a Competitor and someone capable of maximizing their time and committing to getting better every day regardless of how they feel or what situation they’re in.

Don’t let how much time you don’t have keep you from making the most of the time you do have.