Time Management – Why Doing Less is Doing More

Do you struggle to do more and more each day? At the end of the day are you exhausted because all you’ve done is run from one thing to the next all day long? Do you almost feel like you’re living your life on autopilot because you don’t even have time to stop and think?

If that sounds like you then you are trying to do too much. In your efforts to do more and more you actually successfully accomplish less and less. The less you accomplish the lower your confidence in yourself and the higher your level of guilt.

Without even realizing it you’ve positioned yourself to go from bad to worse. You’re on a path headed nowhere without a way out. You are skirting the edge of a cliff and when you go over you’re going to crash and burn.

So stop. Stop the insanity you’re living now. You simply can’t expect to live your life this way the rest of your life.

There’s a way out and a way off this track to nowhere. First, accept you can’t do more. You are only human after all and humans can only do so many things and juggle even less.

Second, realize your success isn’t tied to how much you do your success depends on doing the right things. If you’re like most people 20% of the actions you take during a day produce a desired result, at most. That means the other 80% of the time your actions are actually keeping you from getting what you want.

Now that probably bent your mind. We all like to think everything we do is important and serves a purpose. However, the truth is most of the things we do don’t need to be done, could be done by someone else, or are things we do to avoid doing what we know we should do.

Ouch! You’re probably shocked perhaps even offended because you’re saying, “If it didn’t need to be done would I even be doing it in the first place when I don’t have enough time to do what I need to do let alone time to waste?” After you calm down I want you to replay yesterday in your mind.

List what you did each hour that HAD to get done. Now looking at your list, what would happen if you hadn’t done each thing? Are you satisfied with your answers?

We also like to think “if you want it done do it yourself”. Just make sure it doesn’t have to get done by you because you think you have to micromanage everything and everyone. Just make sure it doesn’t have to get done by you because you aren’t accepting responsibility for managing other people.

Going back to that list you made. How many of those things did you do so you wouldn’t have to do the things you know you should do but don’t want to? How many of the things you’re avoiding are the very things required for success?

If you’re avoiding the very actions that produce success then there has to be a reason for your behavior. Find out what it is, find out how to overcome the obstacles causing the behavior then start new action based behaviors that produce your desired results.