“‘Live within your means” in money and time. Many people are in time debt that they would never accept on their balance sheet.” In his weekly thought-provoking 1-minute read newsletter, Greg McKeown dropped this knowledge bomb that so many business owners need to hear.
I know I have run into (and even talked about it in Book Brew #59) the theme of busyness over and over again in the books, blogs, and newsletters that I have read over the past few years, but this concept of overscheduling ourselves has to stop. It’s not productive. It’s not necessary. It’s not efficient.
Sullivan and Hardy discuss in Who Not How that “we’re taught from a young age that we need to do everything ourselves. We’re taught that getting help from others is ‘cheating’; and something we absolutely shouldn’t do.”
Yet, so many of us choose to continue wearing all the hats - and with pride nonetheless. They even point out, “Believing that doing all the Hows yourself is noble is a limiting belief. It’s not noble.”
Being busy shouldn’t be held as a badge of honor. It keeps us from doing the really meaningful things. It keeps us from spending time with the people that matter most to us.
James Clear said the following in one of his recent 3-2-1 newsletters, “Caring about everything is a disaster. Caring about nothing is a disaster. Nurture the small pocket of things that truly matter to you.”
When I read McKeown’s quote at the top to Damien, we talked about it a bit, and we both came to realize that it may not even land for some business owners, as some don’t even understand the concept of balance sheets. But that is probably for an entirely different blog post.
If you fall into that category, don’t worry - just know that overscheduling yourself is a great way to get nowhere fast.
Like monetary debt, you need to work at getting out of time debt (where your schedule exceeds your capacity). Take this quick action today to start moving into the black and out of the red: