Jade Boyd: This is one of those life skills that we’re just expected to know how to do, even though it’s one of the most difficult things about adulting and about running a business.

Jade: I want you to stop and think about the last time you said to yourself or out loud, I just don’t have time for that. I’d imagine that most of us don’t have to look back very far to remember the last time that we thought that or that we said it to somebody, whether that was a family member or a friend or even within your business, just said to a client or a contractor, I just don’t have time for that right now, but I want to take this statement and dig into it a little bit further and first stop and assess one, is that actually true? Do you really not have time for whatever that thing is? But also two, if it is true and you don’t have time, why don’t you have time?

And there’s many reasons why that might be true. And in this episode, I want to point out some of the reasons why you might not have time challenge your thinking a little bit and whether or not that statement is true, but also give you some tangible solutions to help you identify the problem, why you don’t have time is naturally to point towards a solution for finding more time.

Because this podcast is all about scaling your business. And the truth of the matter is, and this is true of scaling your business, but it’s also true of anything that you might do in business or life. It takes time or it takes money. There’s a trade off there. Like you can invest the time to do it, or you can invest money to have somebody else do it.

There’s no really getting around the trade offs of investing time or money when it comes to achieving anything in your life or business. So identifying why you don’t have time might be a huge game changer for you when it does come to scaling your business and something that I found holds so many women back when it comes to taking the next step and getting out of the comfort that they’re in and whatever season or stage of business that they’re in and taking the time and the effort to reach that next level, it does take some sort of investment on your part. And if time is what you think you can make, then in this episode, I hope that we are going to free up some of your time and help you overcome some limiting beliefs when it comes to how much time you actually do have to invest in your business. And into your goals.

So before we dive into the reasons, I also want to start out with a little explanation of Hofstadler’s law, which tells us that we all have a tendency to underestimate how much time it takes us to do just about everything. Any project that we’re estimating, even when it comes to how much time it’s going to take us to make dinner or respond to a text or to work out. Even we always think the 30 minute workout takes 30 minutes, but it takes a lot longer than that to prep everything and then to clean up afterwards. Right? So here’s why that matters when you underestimate how long it takes you to do things, including how long it’s going to take you to reach your goals and scale your business, first, it leaves you feeling like a failure when you’re comparing yourself to people on the internet who seem to do everything in 2. 2 seconds. We have this perception that for other people, it’s super, super quick. But for me, why is it taking me so much time? Second, you don’t actually fully commit to your goals and you give up early because quote unquote it didn’t work when in reality you might be so close to making it happen if you stick with it a little bit longer. But again, if you’re underestimating how much time it really should take you to reach your goals, you might give up early because you think that, oh, it should have happened by now. And if it hasn’t happened by now, then it’s just not going to work.

Or three, you overcommit yourself to too many projects and end up feeling like a hamster on the wheel, just like constantly moving and running faster and faster, but never really getting anywhere. Never actually feeling like you’re making enough progress because again, you’ve underestimated how much time it takes for every yes, that you give for every project that you take on, you underestimate how much time that’s going to require of you. And when you overcommit yourself, you spread yourself really thin and aren’t making any significant progress on any of those projects, which makes reaching your goals really frustrating.

And it does make it take a lot more time. So when it comes to identifying why you feel like you don’t have time for it, I want to start with realizing that we all have that tendency to underestimate how much time it takes us to do things. And yes, it’s small things like getting ready in the morning, but it’s also big things like how much time is this actually going to take me if I’m committed to scaling my business in the next year, week by week, how much time do I really need to invest? And do I have the time, right? So the first reason why you might feel like you don’t have time is because you are caught in trading time for money and you’re caught in that time famine cycle.

Oftentimes when business owners come to me, they’ve reached that stage in their business where they are busy and booked out. They’re good at what they do, but they feel like they don’t have the time to do anything else in their business because everything is taken up with client work, right? So if you’re constantly telling yourself, oh man, like that looks really hard, I don’t want to take on anything more than what I’m already doing because that’s too much work. I don’t have time. You’re putting yourself in a loop where you’re never going to make time because you’re just going to keep doing what you’re doing, trading time for money and neglecting the very projects that would actually give you more time in the long run.

And in that loop, you’re doing the same things over and over again, hoping that someday things will be different or somehow things are magically going to change, and you’ll have that magical time on your calendar in order to take on some of the projects that you know need to happen in order to free up time in your business, but that’s not going to happen.

I love the way that James Clear talks about time assets and time debts, and this is so applicable when it comes to scaling your business. So time assets are things that you do today that are going to save you time in the future, and time debts are things that you’re doing today that are going to cost you time in the future.

So, assets could be things like, time assets could be things like setting up systems in your business, creating that scalable offer, joining The Business Edit, and getting a clear strategy so that you are working on the right things now in order to free up time later on. All of those projects that you probably tend to say, I don’t have time to do that.

I just don’t have time. That’s too much work. I can’t do it. But those are the very time assets that when you do make time for them are going to free up time later on. So that is the number one reason that you do not have time.

The second reason why you might not have time is that you’re caught in this mindset of time scarcity. You haven’t developed the mindset of time abundancy. And it’s so easy to fall into the pattern of telling yourself, again, I just don’t have time, and sometimes it can become an excuse and a default response that just allows us to stay comfortable and to stay stuck.

Because even if where you’re at isn’t your ideal situation, it’s probably still comfortable because you’re used to being there and saying things like, I don’t have time for that gives yourself an excuse to stay comfortable, but also to stay stuck. There’s this meme that I saw many, many years ago and I think about this all the time, which is more of like a shame oriented meme, which is not my favorite, but it does make me think it’s basically a quote that says someone who’s busier than you is running right now. And it has a picture of somebody like early in the morning, who’s going out on a run and again, I don’t love the shame element because to some extent we have to be realistic and making time for things is really, really challenging. It’s not as easy. Oftentimes it’s just saying like, you know what, I’m going to make time for that.

Making time is actually very difficult, but on the same note, people who are busier than me are oftentimes making time for things that I’m saying that I don’t have time for. When in reality, I probably do have time for it, but I just haven’t done the hard work and made the difficult, uncomfortable changes in my life and in my schedule to make time for it.

And there’s many reasons why that might be happening. This is very subjective and it’s different for every single person’s situation, but if you walk around with that time scarcity mindset, always thinking that there’s never going to be enough time, what you think results in behaviors. And so if you’re constantly telling yourself that you’re going to believe that and your actions are going to follow your beliefs.

And so if you truly do believe there’s no way I could make time for that, then you’re not going to make time for it. Whereas if you can adopt a time, abundancy mindset and adopt the mentality of, I have time for anything, just not everything, right? We do have to make choices and there’s trade offs on what we can make time for. Our time is finite. It is limited to some extent, but we have so much freedom and flexibility to make time for the things that matter to us. And when we come at it with that abundancy mindset of this is really important to me and I am capable of figuring out a way to make time for it, you’re going to be so much more likely to actually take action in that direction and make time for the things that you want to have time for.

Okay, third reason why you might not have time is because nobody taught you how to manage your time. This is one of those life skills that we’re just expected to know how to do, even though it’s one of the most difficult things about adulting and about running a business, understanding effectively how to manage your time, how to prioritize things, how to stay focused on the things that matter and not get distracted and spend too much of your time on like time wasting, time sucking activities.

There are so many skills and strategies that come along with that, and our society kind of just expects that like, oh, managing time, that should be something that’s really easy we all just know how to do that, but in reality, that’s not the case. And so if no one has ever taught you how to manage your time in a way that’s been helpful, right. Has not just given you cookie cutter advice and told you to just follow this process and like everything is going to work out. It does take a customized strategy and even for different seasons of your life. Time management is going to look very, very different for you. But if no one’s ever taught you how to manage your time, then in reality, that might be a huge reason why you don’t have time because you don’t know how to make time.

So if you’re finding reflecting on this reason that like, you know what, I really don’t know what any possible solutions could be based on the situation that I’m in know that you’re not alone in that and that there are solutions that are not cookie cutter advice that will work for you, but sometimes again, somebody has got to teach you and help you along in that, or you have to find a way to learn what is going to work for you in this season and what is actually going to help you create more time? Because that may be one of the number one reasons why you’re walking around telling everybody. I don’t have time, not necessarily because it’s true, but because you haven’t developed the skillset or gotten the guidance or the actual helpful information that you need in order to be able to make time, despite your circumstances, which might be really challenging in this season.

Okay, I’m losing count of the number that I’m on, but the next reason why you might not have time is because you’re choosing to do things the hard way because it’s easier in the short run. How many times have you said, I’ll just do it myself, it’s faster, right? I am definitely guilty of doing this in the short run it seems so much easier to do things myself, but in the long run, I’m making things harder, right? When we’re constantly choosing to do things ourself because it’s easier in the short run, that takes time, and that, again, is a time debt, not a time asset, because we’re not setting ourselves up to make more time for the things that matter in the future.

Another example of this, and this, I’ll just do it myself, it’s way easier, is the mindset of many business owners to just buy the course or listen to the free podcast instead of actually investing the time and getting the accountability to get coaching. This is something I see over and over again as a business coach. It’s obviously something that I’m like well attuned to and pay attention to, but that’s another time debt. You’re wasting a lot of time consuming a lot of different information on the internet when you could just hire the coach, who’s going to help you get that customized strategy to do what you want to do, who already has the proven path. That’s another example of this is easier in the short run because it’s more comfortable or it’s cheaper, but in the long run, it’s not setting yourself up for success. You’re not investing that time. in a way that’s maximizing the time that you’re going to get in the future, and ultimately that makes it harder for you in the long run.

So I want you to pay attention in your business, like even looking at your to do list today, what are things that you are choosing to do the hard way because it’s easier in the short run? What are things on your to do list that could be made easier if you automated something or streamlined something or hired somebody or asked for help? Or decided that it was not going to be easier in the long run to do it yourself, right?

What are some of those things on your to do list? Because those are things that are time debts that are keeping you stuck in that situation of, I just don’t have time because you’re doing everything by brute force instead of building the structure and getting the support that you need to make things easier in the long run.

Jade: The next reason why you might not have time is because you’re not motivated to make the time. And this is different based on the situation, right? But this could be something as little as, you know what I don’t have time to go visit my mother in law when really you, you might have time, but you’re not very motivated to make time. And so you’re not doing it, right? So I don’t have time becomes a really easy default excuse, but on the other end of things, something that’s harder to admit is that maybe you’re not actually motivated or inspired by the goals that you’ve set. Maybe you’re not motivated or inspired by your vision for your business. And so it’s easy for you to not make time for it because it’s, it’s muddled, it’s not clear, it’s not motivating, and you don’t actually have the desire to make time for it. So even if your goals are desirable, even the fact that you don’t have a clear plan could make it unmotivating to make time to work on your goals.

So having a clear plan that helps. motivate you to take steps in the right direction can be a really helpful tool in your toolbox when it comes to making time for the things that matter. You have to want it, right? You have to believe that the time that you put in is going to be worth it in order for you to take steps in the right direction to make time for those things.

It’s hard to make time for things when you don’t believe that doing those things is actually going to make a difference in your life or your business, or even worse, that it’s going to make a, negative impact on your life or your business. Like going back to the mother in law example, maybe you know that that’s not going to be a very enjoyable time.

And so you’re not going to make time for that thing or on your goals, maybe, you know, that that project is going to be really hard and that makes it easier to not make time for that thing. But when you have an inspiring vision, that’s actually aligned with the season that you’re in, and you do feel like your plan is a good one, you feel like, even if this is really hard, I know that if I just show up and put in the reps and put in the work, it’s going to gradually get me to this thing that is really exciting. That makes it a lot easier to feel like you do have time or that you believe that it’s worth it to make the time.

But when you don’t know what to make time for or how much time you need, again, either underestimating or overestimating how much time that’s actually going to take, we can tend to do both. It gets pushed to the back burner and we tell ourselves, I’ll think about that later. I’ll have time next week, or this isn’t the most important thing right now.

I’ll get to it eventually. Maybe you don’t post on social media because every time you post the results are disappointing or maybe you don’t repurpose content to Pinterest because you’ve quote unquote tried it and it’s never really gotten you any leads the results don’t come instantly they only come with consistency and everyone loses momentum when the goal isn’t new and shiny anymore but again having that step by step plan and having that that step by step plan Intention set aside of what you are going to commit to, to reach your goals can make you a lot more motivated to make time for it, but also it helps you know exactly how much time you’re actually going to need so that when it comes to your to do list, you have the time on your calendar to get that important thing done, right? You’re not telling yourself, oh, man, I just, you know, I don’t have time today. I’ll do that tomorrow or next week, or, you know, it just drags on and on. And accountability with that can be really crucial because again, when the goal isn’t new and shiny anymore, after January is over, it becomes a lot easier to lose that vision and lose that motivation to show up day in and day out and doing the things that are not sexy are not immediate wins are not, like dopamine hits. They take a lot of focus and discipline to do having the accountability and people who are aware of what you’re promising to yourself to make time for and checking in on you that can make or break , this mentality of time abundance and your willingness to stay accountable to your own goals too.

So coming back to this idea that anything worth doing is going to take time in business or outside of business. But again, on this podcast, we’re focused on scaling your business and creating a sustainable business that allows you to pay yourself a decent wage and pay yourself consistently without having to put in a ton of time, figuring out where those time assets are that you can use in your business to cut back on your working hours, but not sacrifice your goals or your business success or your, your ambition, your desire to build this business and serve your clients in a way that feels good to you, but also not sacrificing your whole life to do that. So when we’re talking about scaling your business, it’s going to take time because anything we’re doing takes time and you decide ultimately nobody else, just you, you decide how you invest the precious time that you’ve been given and yes, our time is limited. It is short, but we do have a lot of freedom and a lot of choice in deciding how we invest it. And so speaking of, scaling your business, a lot of people ask me when it comes to the business at it, like, why is this a 12 month program? And also how much time is it going to take?

So, The Business Edit it is a 12 month program, because that’s how long it takes you to declutter your business from top to bottom and find your path to scaling and take enough action to see life changing results, knowing that it takes time to get into that habit of making time for your own business. If you’ve been in the pattern of trading time for money, if you’ve been in the mindset of, oh man, I just don’t have time for anything, or you know what, I’m just going to wait until this next season, or I’m going to wait until my kids go back to school, I’m going to wait until this client books, or until I have five clients on my roster and I feel better about this, and then I’m going to commit to my goals. Or then I’m going to commit to making the time that I know it’s going to take to move my business in the right direction to have this longterm vision actually happen. But that takes time and so The Business Edit it is 12 months because it takes time to make time. And it also takes time to do the things that you know that you need to do in order to scale your business.

And my number one goal as a business coach is to see my clients get results. So sure, I can help you create a plan to scale your business in like less than an hour if we sit down and chat that through, but even the perfect plan is not going to help you get results. It’s not going to free up more time in your schedule. It’s not going to make your paycheck any bigger or any more consistent, only when you like test it, execute it, tweak it, rebuild it, systemize it, put in the time to make those time assets, that’s when you’re going to see the life changing results that you really need to see. And that takes time.

So in closing today, if you’re truly ready to scale your business, you’re truly ready to commit to your goals, you’re committed to overcoming these challenges that come with making time for the things that are important for you as a business owner, the road is not going to be a walk in the park. It will take real time and effort, and you’ll need to do things that you’ve probably never done before and become the type of business owner and the type of time manager that you’ve never been before, but it’s going to be 100 percent worth it on the back end when you can look back on everything that you’ve accomplished and really know that your business is set up to provide a bigger paycheck and to allow you more time freedom every single week.

So if you’re ready to get to the root of your problem and why you don’t have time, come join us in The Business Edit. Again, this is a 12 month group coaching program for service providers who are ready to scale their business, and the link will be in the show notes for the application and more information about what the program is all about and what’s included, but a huge focus of the program is time freedom and also figuring out how to manage your time and invest your time in the right things in your business and overcome the excuse oftentimes of, I just don’t have enough time. Which is ironically something that people say when they want to join The Business Edit, but I don’t have enough time for a coaching program.

Again, if you don’t make time for these things, you’re only going to stay stuck where you are. If you have questions about anything that was in this episode, want to chat through different strategies or, if anything resonated with you, I would love to hear your feedback and have real conversations with you. Come talk to me on Instagram @jadeboyd.Co. I love hearing from you guys in my DMS. I would love to hear what resonated with you and how this episode is sitting with you because it was a little bit of a spicy one, but I hope something in this episode was helpful and helped you ideate on how you could free up more time in your own life, and also how you can change your mindset about what it means to manage your time and how that could look for you based on where you’re at in business and life. So until next time, business minimalists, take what you learned today and get 1 percent better this week.