Is There Ever Enough Time?

"Don't say you don't have enough time. You have exactly the same number of hours per day that were given to Helen Keller, Pasteur, Michaelangelo, Mother Teresa, Leonardo da Vinci, Thomas Jefferson, and Albert Einstein." -
  --  H. Jackson Brown

Oh for the love of Mike, really? Now I have to have the time management skills of a soon- to-be-sainted nun, two famous artists, two scientists, a founding father and a woman who got through Radcliffe despite being blind, deaf and barely able to speak? Yeah, that’s going to happen, sure thing, no problem.

 Time is a precious commodity, no doubt about that. So many people will say “I don’t have time.” I’m guilty of this, but a friend pointed out something to me recently. Some things matter more than others; not every task is of equal importance and knowing what really needs to be done and what can wait is a valuable skill. A skill I have not completely mastered. What matters is different for everyone of course.

I know for me, it matters that I find time to exercise. Not so much for the health benefits, because I’m fairly certain I’m negating those by making mass quantities of BLT sandwiches every time it snows. But if I don’t get enough exercise, it gets ugly fast and I don’t just mean my butt. 

The crankiness quotient goes up exponentially. Well, that’s probably not true, I don’t actually know what exponentially means, since I’m not much good with math, but trust me, you would not like me on a day when I haven’t hit the gym or the badminton court. 

If we look at a typical day in anyone’s life, there is almost always a long list of things that need to get done. Parents have to get their kids to school, to activities, sports, playdates etc. At our jobs there are any number of responsibilities that we have. Even young people, students in high school, are at capacity with classes, homework, college applications, SAT prep, sports and sometimes jobs as well.

I don’t know about anyone else, but I can’t remember a day when I got absolutely everything done that I set out to do. Something always gives; something always gets left behind. This used to bug the snot out of me. I was convinced that if only I could be more organized, if only I planned better, or multi-tasked more efficiently, than yes, of course it would all get done.

This is the great myth of time management. We can’t manage time because we can’t make more of it. We all have the same number of hours in the day. Time isn’t going to do what we say, or be where we need it to be.

What I think is a better idea than time management is rather goal management.  What really needs doing? Find what is critical and do that. Everything else can wait. The world did not end the other day when I didn’t get to the bank, the post office, the dry cleaners and the grocery store.

What did make my day though, was being there for a friend. The to-do list imploded, none of it happened, but my friend’s day was just a little bit better because I gave her a ride somewhere. An easy, simple, small thing, a ride. Somewhere she never wanted to be, but at least now she’s on a path that will make things so much better. The credit goes completely to her, she took those first incredibly difficult steps, I was just glad I was able to do one thing for her.

When I first saw this quote I really did think that I clearly could never live up to this group and their accomplishments. I’m never going to get any kind of prize for science, for art, for service to my fellow man. I can see out of both eyes but there’s no way I’m going anywhere near Radcliffe College or any other part of Harvard unless it’s the gift shop.

Not for nothing, the children Mother Theresa took care of probably never gave her the stinkeye over the lunches she packed for them. Thomas Jefferson didn’t have to attend teacher conferences or pick up milk and eggs at the store in between play practice, a stop at the dry cleaners and a dentist appointment.

But what I’m taking from this is simple. I don’t have to do everything. No one does everything. If I get the things done that are truly necessary, that is a better outcome than getting fifty things done in a day, twenty-five of which were not really that important.

Will the world end if I don’t get those library books returned? I surely hope not. Albert Einstein probably never washed a dish or drove carpool, but he seems to have done OK for himself.

I thought at first that time is a constant. An hour is an hour, and there’s only so many in each day. But our perception of that hour matters. What we choose to spend that hour doing is relevant.

We don’t always get to choose, but when we do, I think we should choose substance, at least some of the time. I’m never going to be as accomplished as the group of people in this quote. But I will try to make the things on my to-do list be more than just errands. When I can anyway. The rest of the time, who knows, but I will do more of what counts and less of what doesn’t. And that will just have to be enough.