Too Busy to Fit Something Else In? Bull. Read This.
Written by Dave Navarro on July 31, 2008
Are you looking at the world through “victim-colored glasses?” If you’re telling yourself that you just don’t have time to do something (or to start something), you may be playing the victim card once again.
It’s easy to see external problems everywhere we look - “Work is keeping me too busy,” “There’s just so much going on with the kids,” “I’m running behind in everything …” But when we reinforce the habit of shifting responsibility for our circumstances to something external, we learn to blame everyone and everything … rather than looking inward to what needs to change in ourselves. Sooner or later you’re going to end up hitting the roof … or seeing things that aren’t there. 
Now, don’t get me wrong - it’s certainly true that external people and things shape your circumstances, but you shape them a hell of a lot more by how you react to them - by what choices you make in spite of them. Unfortunately, for a lot of us, a lot of the time, that “choice” is to let the external factors bully us. We don’t do it consciously, we just think that we have no power to change them (or to get ourselves motivated).
(I call bullshit on that one. So does Nick, if his last post is any indication.)
One Dead-Simple Strategy For Fitting Something In Or Jumpstarting Your Drive
Think back to a day when you had a bunch of stuff to do that had to be done that day - no excuses, no extensions. You had 3 or 4 things that just had to be completed by the end of the day. You knew you could do it, as long as you kept focused.
Then BAM! - some emergency happened. Maybe your kid broke his arm at school and needed to go to the doctor. Maybe the power went out for a while. Maybe some emergency project or urgency came to you via telephone, email, or screaming person. An hour or two of your day just went up in smoke.
What did you do? You got mega-focused, handled the emergency, and rushed like hell to get the other stuff done because it HAD TO BE DONE. And ta-da, you finish the day a badass high achiever.
How did you do it? By tapping into the focus-creating adrenaline that comes when you have to handle a whole lot of tasks in a short amount of time. You went into emergency mode: Get it done, don’t stop slamming, jump from one thing to the next. Badda-BOOM.
To Get More Done, Learn To Shift Into Emergency Mode
Let’s say you have a hella busy workday and you have tons to do. Fair enough. You don’t think you have time to go to the gym, or write that blog post, or do X, Y or Z. You have 2 choices:
- Blame something external (like Stalker Roof) for screwing up your schedule
- Flip the Emergency Switch and do all your other tasks faster.
Simply put, you can pull a fast one on your brain by telling yourself you have an emergency appointment - you have to do X / Y/ Z for an hour - you have to - and so you’ve got to truck like crazy to get all your other stuff done today to fit it in. Mentally pretend it’s as important as an emergency room visit and you’ll sense a shift going on in your brain - the shift that makes you stop wasting time, losing focus and working at a fraction of your potential.
It sounds goofy, but it works. When you tell yourself you want to do things, you can afford to be slack, and push it to tomorrow. But if you tell yourself you have to do something, you can tap into the juicy adrenaline goodness that helps you get more done.
And if you don’t believe you can muster up the mental psych-out? Make it real. Do that thing you’ve been putting off first thing that day, and then - uh oh - you’ve truly got less time to work on all your other have-to tasks. And that will get your adrenaline in gear for real.
The Moral Of The Story
- You can push yourself harder than you think. You do it all the time when you live reactively. Now do it on purpose.
Reframe your ‘to-do’ list for today into a ‘must-do-by-3pm’ (or something similar) and surprise yourself with how much faster you can get things done.
Incoming Deadlines Make You Work Faster, Period.
(PS - get free updates to this blog by email or RSS - or Stalker Roof will be stalking you next …)
Yeah. Oh yeah, you are so right today, Dave.
You know how I know this works? I hear people say to me all the time, “I don’t know how you do ‘x’ with all those kids, and a full time job, etc.”
So I know that I can do more. Because then I see people who don’t have four kids etc., saying, “I’m so busy I can’t do ‘x’, or I’m so tired from work I can’t start ‘y’ and so on…”
Bull.
“Can’t”? Or is it, “won’t”.
And I love this, because it is true. Pretend you only have to 3 pm to do it. Or pretend you’re going to lose your job, and you need to find another source of income. Whatever works.
When we’re pushed, we can move mountains.
-Brett
Brett Legree’s last blog post..viking fridays - burn the boats.
Dave,
This post is awesome, because I do this every. single. day. Like a doggone split personality. One half of me tries to say, “I can’t! stuff got in my way,” and the other half says “yes, you can, but now you’ve made it harder on yourself and I’m still not gonna let you off the hook.”
Not that you’ve provided a solution for my split personality, but you have described both the accidental victim and the rockin’ achiever who live inside me to a T.
I agree, it’s mostly bull and a lot easier to overcome than people think. With me, the rockin’ achiever wins most of the time. But sometimes I tell him where to get off so I can relax and not beat myself up too much.
Regards,
Kelly
Kelly’s last blog post..Summer Is a Great Time to… Have a New Logo Designed (“Rebrand”)
I’d be careful with this one.
In my soul reading practice, I see many people who get into this “emergency mode” and then find themselves stuck in there — for years. They can’t relax even though their situations have changed and it is completely appropriate for them to loosen up.
I’d rather work things from inside out. If there are so many things to do, it’s likely that the person has outgrown his or her given role and they need to review the tasks, let go of things that are no longer important — and here, the whole things fit in nicely without beating ourselves out
Light,
Akemi - Yes to Me’s last blog post..Five Signs Of A Small Blog That Is Ready To Grow
@Brett -
I hear you. I’ve got 3 kids, and when I see someone with 6 who does more than I do (with less ‘resources’ than I have), it sends me a message …
@Kelly -
One of my most stressful (and fun) jobs had a motto - “You work hard, and you play hard.” They worked us to the bone for a few weeks - then gave us time off, a cash bonus, and a mandate to do something incredibly fun with the time and money and then report back. The balance kept us from burning out. Work hard, then enjoy some hard-earned relaxation.
@Akemi -
Excellent point - I don’t recommend ‘emergency mode’ as a long-term solution; just a short-term fix to beating a lack of motivation or finally squeezing in something that’s been put off for far too long. We have more usable time than we think. When the deadline is there, the pressure is on to make it work.
But that’s no way to live long-term. On the flip side, doing this periodically - going into emergency mode so you make time to do something enjoyable (go to gym, take a walk in the park, etc) can be a great way to reinforce to yourself that if you stay focused and work at your potential every day, you’ll have more time for yourself
What’s ’soul reading’? Sounds intriguing.
Dave, you beat me in responding to Akemi’s comment!
I totally agree that being stuck in emergency mode is no way to live, but just from observing people, it seems that far less people suffer from “permament emergency syndrome” than “never doing what you claim to be important to you” syndrome. Since we’re all different, a little self-reflection is needed to determine what side of the line you’re on, and be sure to take the right medicine.
Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..Do You Have A Squidoo Lens?
I actually did this two evenings ago. I realized something, called up Harry to share, we agreed on my plan, and when I hung up, I was in emergency mode to make it happen - that’s how bad I wanted it to happen right now.
I blazed through stuff that I had been struggling with and in 24 hours, I could move on to my goal.
Felt damned good.
James Chartrand - Men with Pens’s last blog post..Guest Posting: Finding the Motivation to Write
BTW, what the heck is up with CommentLuv showing completely random old posts whenever I leave a comment lately? Not just here…it’s everywhere…CommentLuv needs to stop living in the past.
Hunter Nuttall’s last blog post..Todoodlist: Technology Is Great, Pencils Are Better
Hunter,
OMG it did it to me too and I didn’t even notice!
On my blog, it has been completely randomly not working, as in nothing shows up under some people’s names, then it’s fine, then nothing. I think it must be a FeedBurner problem rather than a CommentLuv problem. (?)
Until later,
Kelly
Kelly’s last blog post..The Big Productivity Suck You Don’t Know You’re Causing
Thanks, Dave. I needed this today.
Wedding planning had succeeded in pulling my productivity down to an all-time low. This is great motivation to get back in the game with everything on my plate.
Kristen’s last blog post..Forget The Words, Write With Thought
This is a very timely post for me…I have been slacking a bit lately…Getting things done but taking my own sweet little time to do it. I am glad I am reading your post the first thing this morning…I am going to use this motivation and ‘rock my day’…
Sandy Naidu’s last blog post..Authors And Speakers On ‘Working From Home’ and ‘Self Employment’ - Meet Paul and Sarah Edwards
You know when comic strips are so funny you can’t even laugh? This post is so good I can’t even comment.
You know?
@Hunter -
I’m glad Akemi left that comment - it was good to have the point brought up. Hmm … checking out your post now, because I was asking myself that Squidoo question earlier today …
@James -
It does feel damned good.
… actually, it was your post today that made me get off my ass and post …
@Kristen -
Glad to be crackin’ the whip for you and others. *crack!*
@Sandy -
Hope your day rocked.
@Steph -
It’s the Stalker Roof. Gets ‘em every time.
@ Dave: that *did* make me laugh!
steph’s last blog post..Tagline Tag
I agree that each person is on different path and some needs a sidekick while others benefit from a complete review of their situations.
Re: soul reading. Each soul has a series of records, called Akashic Records. Large part of what we usually call personality is actually defined by the soul’s background. I also check various blocks and restrictions that affect us mentally, emotionally and physically. Because you asked, allow me to leave a link to my website for this service:
Akashic Record Reading
Blessings,
Akemi - Yes to Me’s last blog post..Five Signs Of A Small Blog That Is Ready To Grow
Dave,
Something about your response and Hunter’s comment struck my chord and I’ve been thinking . . .
I don’t think the people who would most benefit from your advice are reading this blog (nor mine, for that matter) because they are “too busy” to watch TV. Be default, we are dealing with a special segment of the population. And if someone (like the commentators here) can recognize that they benefit by this emergency training, they are half way on their way to success.
Kind of ironical, isn’t it?
(BTW if we could get all those people read our blogs, we’d have millions of subscribers . . )
Okay it’s been a long day for me, I’m going to bed now and dream about TV suddenly showing blogs . . .
[…] I made the decision that saying I’m too busy is bull. […]
Love your posts Dave! I am always amazed at how much I can do in 2 hours when all I have is 2 hours!!! Thanks for consistently reinforcing this message (and the get up early message!!)
I just had to add to this one… I read a great article yesterday by Brian Tracy, and in it he said:
But the fact is that you are where you are and what you are because that’s what you have chosen. You can do amazing things with your life, but nobody else can change your situation for you. It’s entirely up to you.
http://www.earlytorise.com/2008/07/31/is-it-time-to-rethink-your-career-2.html
Have a great weekend everyone.
Julie,
I just went to read that Brian Tracy article - wow, that was great!
Brett Legree’s last blog post..viking fridays - burn the boats, revisited.
WOW! Dave this post could NOT have come at a better time for me. After putting off going back to school for 18 years and letting life get in the way, I finally took the steps to go back this fall. Just as I was getting psyched up to enroll for fall classes, we had two major crisis situations come up in my family. I have been walking around since the 2nd one thinking there was NO way I could continue with my plans considering everything else that was happening and my new role as both primary caregiver and sole provider for two households.
First, I see your post. Then, I find my financial aid award letter in the mailbox………..I will MAKE the time to take care of me,so that I can be whole to take care of those around me. Thanks for this one! It really hit the spot.
One thing I’ve noticed is that you can tell a person’s priorities by what they make time for. Because we all have the exact same amount of it in every day, then if you didn’t do it, it’s not important to you. Notice I didn’t say it wasn’t important, I said “not important to you“. We always make time for what we feel is important to us–whether it’s really important or even good for us is another matter entirely.
[…] purpose of kicking myself in the ass to get going on my own things (of course, Dave Navarro’s big boots always […]
I fully believe that everything is a choice - and what we choose to accomplish or not accomplish has consequences. When those consequences seem negative (like pressure, stress, lack of productivity or lack of downtime), we whine and say that the world’s unfair.
I know that I’m not nearly as productive as I could be, but I’m happy living at my relaxed pace. Yes, I could be more productive (and likely with a better income) but for the moment, I’m good where I am.
Great post to intro me to your site (directed here by Brett @ 6weeks).
Cheers,
Alex
Alex Fayle’s last blog post..The Blog is Dead! Long Live the Blog!
Very true, you can get more done in emergency mode. Being hyperfocused on achieving things is a wonderful feeling, and the achievement is very satisfactory afterwards.
But don’t try to do that for too many days in a row, I’ve got a feeling that it might burn you up in the end.
Lodewijk’s last blog post..ZenToDoodlist