Have you ever said, "I'm sorry, I didn't have enough time to get that done?" Whenever I hear this, it makes me wonder though, what exactly does it mean to say I don't have enough time? Don't we all get the same 24 hours in a day? And, for the most part, we can choose what we do within those 24 hours. If we choose to do one thing over another then what we might really mean is, "something else became a higher priority for me today and I didn't get that done."
Prioritizing your day at home or at work has an incredible amount of variation that could change everything you planned to do in that day. This happened to me on a daily basis during our recent 10-day mountain biking trip. Of course, we had a basic plan of how long we wanted to drive each day and about where we wanted to camp and ride. Some variations that we had to consider were weather and the limitations of refurbishing our RV since we prefer to dry camp rather than staying at an RV camp site.
Our main focus, of course, was to get in some really good mountain biking rides that included at least a couple of "long" rides (about 3-5 hours). I'm happy to say we did have enough time (prioritized) getting in those long rides. Mission accomplished! But, that wasn't without several adjustments that my husband and I had to make on a daily basis.
Changing priorities on a daily basis while not losing sight of accomplishing those things you really value is the trick especially when trying to prioritize work and life together. For those of us who are working remotely, we are faced with dueling priorities about how to spend our time. Do I quickly respond to that email from my boss or do I help my daughter get logged onto her Zoom classroom? We face these dilemmas on a daily basis and invariably will end up saying, "I just didn't have enough time to get it all done."
If you find yourself constantly prioritizing life over work or work over life and feeling guilty about your decision, reach out and let's explore how you can bring harmony back into your work and life.
