“I just don’t have enough time!” It’s the number one complaint I get from clients. Almost without exception, people use time as their number one excuse for not having the life they want and see themselves as victims of their reality of “not enough time.” Their availability to spend time with family, to work out, or take a seminar seems nearly impossible in the shadow of sixty-hour workweeks and the demands of the job outside the home. Heaven forbid we should take on a hobby!

Volumes of books have been written on time management and chances are, somewhere along the way of your personal growth and development, you learned a couple of methods to combat the demands of your hectic schedule. Tips on how to manage your time are everywhere to be found, but are those tips really providing you with the answers you need to find the joy you so want in your life?

There is one indisputable truth about time. It’s a fixed commodity and one cannot “make more time.” It’s impossible. There are only 24 hours in a day. Non-negotiable. Sorry, we can’t change that. However, one can shift one’s experience of time. And while this may seem a rather esoteric response to a very practical issue, there are some very practical “how-to’s” that can be explored around this idea.

First, let us examine some of our very basic beliefs about time. Are you one that that believes “time is money?” Do you live by the adage, “there’s no time like the present?” Do you resist the “ravages of time?” Or “is time on your side?” What does “in a timely manner” mean to you? These phrases represent just a few commonly-held notions around the concept of time. Your first step in creating freedom in this “time domain” is to take a look at what cultural and societal beliefs you’ve either consciously or unconsciously accepted about time. Do you share your company’s beliefs about time? Are you always “a day late and a dollar short?” Are your deadlines impossible to meet? Over the next couple of weeks, notice how you experience time and observe what you say about time. This also means noticing the time you have, and the time you don’t have. The time others “make” that you waste with busywork, or the time you block and protect, in order to do something you really love doing.

Once we start telling the truth about how we really spend our time, rearranging our choices around time becomes easier. Every person has a particular style in life and set of strategies that allow or detract from his or her success. The way time is spent is a reflection of these strategies. Are some of your strategies working against you?

Every day, in a million ways, we are offered choices as to how we will spend our time. Every time you say yes to one thing, you’re also saying no to something else. In invite you to look closely at the choices you make today, and at what you are saying yes and no to, by the way you spend your time today.