Get more free time!

Having “more free time” in your day is a funny concept.

“I’ll call you when my schedule opens up” or “I won’t have any free time until fall” are things I hear quite often in sales calls.

The language itself implies it’s something out of our control – almost as though the time controls me, the schedule owns me, and I am hoping it will relax its iron grip at some point. At its convenience.

I think it really feels that way – it feels as though we’re at the mercy of our schedule, our deadlines, our commitments. We did commit to those things, after all. And there are certainly consequences for not doing those things we said we’d do. People might be pissed if we don’t!

The thing is, we’re always doing the stuff we want to be doing. Even when it doesn’t feel like it.

We’re doing what is most important in the moment.

If we’re jumping when the client says jump, answering the urgent email from the boss, or delivering the product on the deadline, we’re doing those things because we don’t want to feel the burn of not doing them. We’re choosing to do the thing, in order to not suffer the consequences!

But it feels like “I have to” and “I have no choice” and “my schedule controls me.”

“Let’s just talk in the fall once people don’t need things from me anymore.” Yeah right…

So, how does one “free up time” in your day, getting “more free time” when there are so many competing priorities and high stakes projects that won’t ever go away (but we hope they will)?

It takes brief moments of reflection. A pause for thought, even if only 2 minutes, once or twice a day. Mindfully looking at what’s really causing the chaos. Seeing if you can find the pattern in the problems. Planning certain work you’d normally leave up to chance. Building a new skill, becoming more efficient, sharpening your saw.

What could you do to manage someone else’s expectations? How can you commit to less but do more? How can you make sure you give yourself enough time to get everything done?

So. You can hopefully get more free time by leaving it up to chance or to your clients, or you can start to create more free time by making choices that seem counter-intuitive initially.

Like telling your assistant politely that you’re unavailable for 20 minutes while you plan your week. Quitting your email program and changing your iPhone to Airplane Mode so you can take your 3 most important projects and add time blocks into your iCal to work on them.

Liberating, right?