Earlier this week I was staring down a to do list that did not want to squeeze itself into the time allotted. It was the proverbial 10 pounds of sugar in a 5 pound sack conundrum.
I started with the usual – canceling an appointment or two, getting up early, staying up late, delegating a few things, removing a few more. This is the easy part for me; I’d happily shuffle and rearrange all day. Shuffling is not hard.
What’s hard is not getting myself in the shuffle-inducing situation to begin with. I hear from highly accomplished women all the time that they are constantly tempted to bite off more than they can chew. Me too! We have to get better at this.
Here’s why.
As I’m rearranging my calendar and my task list, the words running through my head on repeat are:
I don’t have enough time.
And those words stress me out. Constantly telling myself “I don’t have enough time” does nothing to create time or to boost my productivity. In fact, it does exactly the opposite.
What I need isn’t more time, it’s more perspective.
And I need a new mantra that can run through my head on repeat. Like this one.
I have all the time I need to do what I choose. 
No, I don’t have unlimited time. But I have all the time I’m going to get. So do you. And if we can’t control how much time we have, we have to carefully choose how we’ll spend it.
Whatever we choose will fit into the time we have. It has to.
It’s the habit of trying to squeeze too much that makes us frantic.
I have zero desire to be frantic.
I’m anti-frantic, in fact.
Which means I have to choose to do fewer things so I can do each of them with presence. With patience. With grace. With excellence.
I’m doubling down on my commitment to this. Care to join me?
Say it with me. I have all the time I need to do what I choose.
