The 1-word solution to most of life’s problems.

Today, I’m going to tell you four terrible facts about time, but I have to because they are true.

Not only are they true, but if you deal with time, most of life’s problems will be solved.

Here are four terrible facts presented in list format:

1. Most goals are optimistic lies.
2. Time is the only honest metric.
3. If you divorce your goals from your calendar, you will never achieve them.
4. Time is your most valuable resource, but it’s also your most vulnerable.

Let’s break them down and then fix them.

Most goals are optimistic lies.

If you say you’re going to run a marathon but your week can only currently accommodate a training for a 1K at best, you’ve just told an optimistic lie. It felt great to say it, but you’re not going to do it because you don’t have the time.

Time is the only honest metric.

If you tell me your biggest desire is to write a book and you spend more time scrolling on Instagram than writing, you don’t really want to write a book. It’s fun to say we want a certain thing, but the calendar tells the truth.

If you divorce your goals from your calendar, you will never achieve them.

Your calendar is either your best friend or your worst enemy depending on how you treat it. If you marry your goals to your calendar, you can achieve anything you want. ??

Time is your most valuable resource, but it’s also your most vulnerable.

Time can’t protect itself. The only thing time knows how to do is flow. It continually, relentlessly evaporates. It’s vulnerable. It’s your job to protect it.

When I realized these four truths in my own life, I did what every busy person does – I looked for a new time management system.

Right now, from where I sit, I can see 11 different time management notebooks. They all promise, in different ways, that THIS is the system that will make more productive, fix all my problems and add more peace to my life.

But what’s interesting is that all of them fail because none of them get at the root of the issue.

Managing time starts with managing your mindset.

That’s not something that is unique to time either.

Here’s a simple principle that governs your life:

Thoughts turn into actions. Actions turn into results.

All too often, when it comes to dealing with time, we overfocus on our actions and never change the underlying thoughts that are shaping everything we do. Therefore, we don’t get the results we want.

Let’s change that today.

Three soundtracks that will change your relationship with time.

A “soundtrack” is just my phrase for a repetitive thought. I wrote a book and a video course about it if you’re curious.

When you learn something new, old soundtracks get loud. Our brains don’t like to change, so the minute you start trying, old soundtracks, old programming, old beliefs will launch a full out assault to get you to stay the same.

This happens every single time and there are three particular broken soundtracks about time that we need to expect and execute. ?

Broken Soundtrack 1:

“I don’t control my schedule.”

This is a fair bit of pushback. I work for myself, which theoretically gives me the ability to determine a lot of my schedule. I have clients I have time commitments to but I don’t technically have a boss and a time sheet in the traditional sense. It would be understandable to say, “Jon, it’s easy for you to manage your time because you’re an entrepreneur and have different freedom than I do.”

I think that’s a good point. I do have a weirdly-shaped life, but recently a friend of mine named Carey Nieuwhof really challenged me on this point. He has a great book called, “At Your Best” where he talks a lot about managing your energy levels, your time and your priorities. When he was on my podcast, I pushed back on him in the same way that maybe you’re pushing back on me. I said, “Carey, not everybody can control their schedule. Most people don’t have that freedom.”

He replied, “The problem is that when people hear a new idea, they tend to focus on the things they can’t control versus the things they can control.”

That stopped me in my tracks because when someone offers me a new idea or approach to life, my broken soundtracks are always focused on what I can’t control. For instance, if someone says, “You should be part of this weekly mastermind,” my immediate response is “I can’t because I travel too much for work.” That’s true, I don’t necessarily control my flight times always, but what if instead of arguing why it won’t work, I got curious about how it could? What if instead of instantly shutting it down, I said, “What time does it meet? What days does it meet?”

What if instead I looked at my schedule and realized that even though I travel for work, most weeks I could make a 7AM mastermind call, especially if it was virtual. Do you know how many speaking engagements I’ve had in the last 10 years at 7AM? Zero. But my broken soundtrack of “I don’t control my schedule” got loud instantly and shut down the possibility of me doing the mastermind.

Let’s do a quick soundtrack switch out to address that.

Don’t say:

“I don’t control my schedule.”

Instead say:

“Focus on what I can control, not what I can’t control.” ??

Or shorten it a bit and say,

“Don’t let my excuses dictate my day.”

An excuse is just another name for a broken soundtrack.

The real problem with the soundtrack, “I don’t control my schedule” is that it tends to turn into “I don’t control ANY of my schedule.” It’s a subtle change, but it’s a powerful one. You don’t control ANY of the 168 hours in the week? You’re 0 for 168? I don’t believe that.

That was the other thing I learned from Carey. He said, “Ask yourself how many hours of the week your boss requires you to be in a certain place, doing a certain thing, at a certain time. It’s probably less than you think.” I guarantee that right now, for the majority of you, regardless of the job you have, your boss has not assigned exact actions for all 40 hours of the work week.

That’s why I cheer when I see someone studying for a college degree while sitting in a toll booth. That’s a person who has to be at a certain spot, doing a certain thing but instead of scrolling TikTok on her phone in between cars, she’s hustling.

This activity will help you figure out which parts of your schedule you control.

The second broken soundtrack you will hear when you try to manage your time is:

“Surprises and emergencies in my week make it impossible to plan.”

Amen! Amen! Amen! In the immortal words of Mike Tyson,

“Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth.”

Let’s be real, life is going to punch you in the mouth. It is. If you want to be frustrated and disappointed, just try to plan out every one of your 168 hours this week. There are going to be surprises, unexpected obstacles and emergencies. That’s how life works.

But here’s the thing, there are less than you think. How do I know that? Because you’ve never really paid attention to how many there are. We’re so busy reacting and living in chaos that we never recognize that there are only a handful of surprises in every week. There’s not 100. There’s probably not even a dozen.

For example, we got a flat tire the other day. That threw my schedule into a bit of a loop for a few hours. I hadn’t planned to change that tire. It cost me time. But let’s be honest, it’s also the first flat tire we’ve had in 3 three years. It’s not like I’m getting them every week.

The other thing is that sometimes things that pretend to be emergencies aren’t really emergencies. If a coworker says, “I need you to review this document ASAP,” it’s tempting to completely drop everything you’re doing, throw your whole schedule into a tailspin and spend time on that unexpected emergency. But what if instead you replied, “I’m booked solid today, but have a window open tomorrow at 2PM? Could I review it then and give you feedback by 4PM?”

That level of detail would blow their mind and chances are they don’t need your feedback right this second. They’re just living in their own chaos zone and trying to invite you in.

Let’s do another soundtrack switch out.

Don’t say:

“Surprises and emergencies in my week make it impossible to plan.”

?Instead say:

“Life is full of surprises, but there are less than I think.” ??

Want a fun, silly bit of homework? Count surprises this week. Just keep a running list in your phone or your notebook. Count things that pop up unexpectedly in your week that cost you at least an hour of time. If you get a 10-minute phone call from a friend out of the blue, don’t count that. I’m talking about an emergency or surprise that takes at least an hour of your time. I promise you’ll be surprised how few there really are.

Want to take this to an even higher level of performance? When you encounter something unexpected, ask yourself two questions:

1. Has this happened before?
2. Will this happen again?

If the answer is “yes” to either of those questions, then you need to build a system. I’ll teach you how to do that in the Guaranteed Goals Community, but for now know this, if something happens repeatedly, it’s not a surprise or an emergency. It’s a situation begging for you to create a system to handle it.

I learned that working with some of the best dental practices in the country. Every day at a dental office is full of unexpected situations. They can’t plan for an 8th grader to chip his tooth on a baseball or a crown to break or a cavity to get unbearable for a patient. You can’t schedule emergencies, but the best dental practices have a plan for when they do happen. They have a system to accommodate the unexpected. They know how to shift patients, create space in the day, and get people in pain into the office immediately.

They plan for the unplanned and so can you.

The third broken soundtrack you’ll hear is

“I don’t have enough time.”

You don’t, neither do I, but when you keep an honest calendar it teaches you that maybe you’re trying to shove too many things into one week. That sometimes happens to me. I come up with too many actions I want to take, too many goals I want to accomplish and too many commitments for one week. I don’t know that though until I start assigning them hours.

When I do that, I get a quick education in time management from my calendar. It forces me, in the best possible way, to prioritize. I’m not naturally good at prioritizing, but the calendar gives me natural boundaries I can use to my advantage. For instance, if I know it takes me 20 hours to write a new speech and I only have four hours available to do that in my average week, it’s going to take me five weeks to complete it.

Instead of feeling like a failure when I’m unable to accomplish a 20-hour task in one week, I have choices.

1. Choose to find more time.
2. Choose to be patient with the process.
3. Choose to complain about being too busy.

I’ve tried that last option hundreds of times and although it gives me the false sense of feeling important, “Look how busy I am!” it doesn’t accomplish anything.

One of the things that’s helped me find more time and be patient with the process is using the Finish Calendar. Seeing my whole week, month and year all at once really simplifies planning for me. I’ve used it for ten years and learned a powerful lesson:

Self-discipline is hard.

Calendar discipline is easy.

I’m not a naturally disciplined person. It’s hard for me to focus. I am very scattered. But the calendar gives me a perfectly defined set of constraints to create in. My week isn’t shapeless and overwhelming. (You can get your own Finish Calendar here.)

Let’s do one last soundtrack switch out.

?Don’t say:

“I don’t have enough time.”

Instead say:

“I have the perfect amount of time for the things that matter most.” ?

You do.

You have enough time for the things that matter.

I hope you have too much free time. I hope your biggest issue is that you have so much time on your hands that you don’t know what to do with yourself. What a wonderful problem to have that would be.

But more than likely, you’re like me. There’s a lot going on and you want to manage your time a little better.

Practice those soundtracks the next time you feel busy and if you want to check out the best calendar I’ve ever used, here it is.

Jon

P.S. I wrote this for my free newsletter, the “Try This!” Sign up today to get ideas just like this, twice a month. www.Acuff.me/newsletter