Comments on: Why “I Don’t Have Enough Time” is a Bullshit Excuse

By: catherine philibert

catherine philibert — Sun, 16 Jul 2017 11:04:33 +0000

Hard to admit, but I can recognize…. somebody… who is going to improve, thanks to you Alex. Truly, “I don’t have time” is “I don’t make time”.

By: Andrew Boon

Andrew Boon — Sat, 15 Jul 2017 11:23:20 +0000

Timely article. Thank you!

I would guess that bringing the example of top CEOs like Elon Musk as a proof is a bit unfair, though. Most people that -really- have no time are spending it for “chores”, like house duties, personal finance, filling in for people they can’t hire, day job, taking care of kids without any help, etc. Elon Musk would have the freedom to do strategic decision making when your average Joe still has to do the dishes. Joe still has plenty to learn from Elon, though.

By: Marc NIAMBE

Marc NIAMBE — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 16:41:42 +0000

Great post as well as all other articles of your blog, just want to add this quote from Lao Tzu : “Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.”,
Thanks

By: Jose Fuentes

Jose Fuentes — Fri, 14 Jul 2017 02:52:23 +0000

Self discipline is indeed very important. Having the right attitude would really add up to something great. I think what also made those successful people win over time is that they are able to leverage their time. But again, even finding the time to delegate can be hard if we don’t have out own time management on the first place. Thanks a lot, great read!

By: emarsity

emarsity — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 23:07:41 +0000

How true
“…replace “I don’t have enough time” with “that’s just not important enough to me to do right now.”…”
Thank you Alex.

By: Jason Weil

Jason Weil — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 18:14:59 +0000

Good article. We have a saying in my family: “Excuses, excuses. Friends don’t need them, enemies don’t believe them!”

By: Vinish Garg

Vinish Garg — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 16:54:41 +0000

I often struggle to understand people who don’t have time to:
– Learn something new (by discussions in learning meetups, community lunch, or from mentors/advisers)
– Do something new that they want to do

I see people continue doing what they have been doing for years, and still not happy about doing that because they don’t have time to do something else. Can you beat it?

Your post it so timely, and is worth-sharing.

By: Bob Warfield

Bob Warfield — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 16:39:20 +0000

Rescue Time works, I’ve used it. But, it’s a passive reporting technique. What works better is to take active control of your time.

We all know that Focus is important to productivity. When we actively focus on something, we often make progress. But how long can we keep it up?

Some distraction breaks our focus on we’re off chasing the next urgent squirrel that ran by.

The key turns out to be putting together a few key ingredients:

– Control your priorities so you know what’s important versus what’s merely urgent.

– Learn to maintain focus just a little longer over time. There are proven techniques that work for this. Some are a bit odd, but try them anyway. My favorite odd one is a little free app called “Noisli” (not associated with them in any way).

– Learn to control WHEN you focus by giving in to breaks. It sounds counter-intuitive, but you control your focus by rewarding yourself with breaks.

I put all of this together with some proven techniques from other disciplines to create my own Productivity Hack Suite. Some of the techniques I developed are quite famous (I helped pioneer Scrum and Agile programming, for example).

They work though, I promise. More here:

http://bobwarfield.com/100-days-productivity-simple-goal-setting-worksheet/

And BTW, I am so with you about disagreeing with the Veynerchuck Out-Hustle-Everyone as the road to success meme. Hustle is useful, but it’s a short term tactic you break out when you fail at coming up with something better.

In that sense, Hustle is a Bush League tactic, LOL.

By: Tom Faggionato

Tom Faggionato — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 15:55:50 +0000

Hi Alex, another great post and definitely something we need to do as a team! Looking forward to using Groove to help us at our startup soon:)

By: Andy Trisconi Smith

Andy Trisconi Smith — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 15:15:17 +0000

Such a great post – it really calls into focus what I (and I am sure many others) spend our time not doing when we are doing the “not important” instead. What could we all be doing if we put our mind to something important.

By: Roland Pokornyik

Roland Pokornyik — Thu, 13 Jul 2017 14:51:49 +0000

I don’t have time to read your article Alex 😉
Great piece of advice. Very important learning for many. Thanks for sharing.