I have gone through a particularly busy period both at work and personally and have found myself uttering the words “I just don’t have the time” with some regularity.

As anyone who follows my twitter feed (@shumpty77) will know: I read a lot of articles or blogs focused on improving productivity and work life balance.  I figure that there is no advice in this area that is wrong because of the breadth of the subject matter and, frankly, any tips is a good tip.

I was out walking last night (it is the festive season and my weight inevitably balloons during this period so I am trying to make a preemptive strike against that) when a thought struck me.  Mentally, I had been running through everything I had to get done today: both from a work perspective and a personal perspective.  Thinking negativity I was lamenting to myself that “there just aren’t enough hours in the day” when the thought that struck me was this: life is about personal choices and thus everything that I have on my list of things to do is there because I have chosen it to be there.  Therefore I have two choices, either:

1. Accept that I have put myself in the position of having too much to do and stop whining about; or
2. Reconsider my personal choices and match those choices with the time available to me.

In the short term, because I have myself loaded up my “to do” list I have to accept that I am just going to have to get through everything and stop whining about it.

in the long term though, my epiphany has led me to realize that, really, I should never be in a position where I utter the words “I just don’t have the time” because ultimately, and fundamentally, I chose that which I commit to doing both from a work and personal perspective.  The only person at fault if I become over-stretched for time is myself.

I am going to focus moving forward on avoiding getting to that position because, effectively, to be there means that I am over promising and under delivering to those who rely on me both at work or personally and I find that utterly unacceptable.