You can’t do it all. Sorry, not sorry.
Photo by Jackie Alexander on Unsplash
Are you trying to figure out how to “do it all”?
Many, many, people who come to me for help are trying to figure out just that. How to “do it all”.
But here’s the thing.
You can’t do it all
I can’t do it all
No one can do it all
You, me and everyone else on this planet?
We could each work 18 hours a day, and there would still be more work tomorrow.
There’s no such thing as “doing it all”.
And for ambitious people like you, the (false) belief that it’s possible to “do it all”, is a huge hurdle to productivity and, more importantly, managing your time in a way that feels sustainable instead of endlessly defeating.
Because if you think that there’s some magical way that you’re going to be able to figure out how to do it all.
Some special formula.
A strategy to Tetris it all together.
And that the problem is not that it’s impossible, but that you just haven’t figured it out yet?
Well, that’s a huge, monumental barrier to:
Effective prioritization and
Time (er, life) satisfaction.
And what is your life, but a series of moments in time?
Time satisfaction is life satisfaction.
If you think you can do it all, then you’re not as worried about making the right decisions, the right tradeoffs, with your time, because you’re operating on the false premise that you’ll be able to fit it all in.
And because it’s a false premise, because it’s patently untrue, because it’s a lie you’ve been fed, hook, line and sinker, you’re basically guaranteed to be struggling and feeling bad about yourself, and/or running yourself ragged, and on the road to burnout (or well past it).
But lest you think this is an article steeped in pessimism, I assure you it’s not.
Because this is just the first hurdle.
Once you’ve accepted the fact that there will always be more to do.
Once you’ve accepted that, as an ambitious person, there’s just no way to do it all. (Because you’re always gonna have more and better ideas. I feel this deeply, as a person whose “someday/maybe” lists currently sits at 428 items. All great ideas I’d act on, if it were possible to “do it all”)
Once you’ve accepted that you’ve been following the yellow brick road to a fantasy land.
Well, then the real work starts.
And things (and by that, I mean your brain) start moving from pessimistic, to realistic, and dare I say, optimistic.
Because once you’ve accepted you can’t do it all.
Now you have agency.
Now you get to make choices.
Now you understand that time is about trade offs.
And while you can’t “do it all”, you certain have the ability to prioritize in such a way that you know, for a fact, that the things you did today were more important than the things you didn’t do.
And that means that you get to feel good about your time.
And good about yourself.
And if you’re sitting here thinking, “well how the heck do I learn to prioritize like that?” Well, I can teach you.
But the first step towards your ability to do the important things, to make time for the things you care about, the things that will truly move the needle, and to feel confident in the tradeoffs you must make with your time, is to accept that your time is limited.
And that’s a hard pill to swallow. I know.
But once you swallow it, you will feel so much more in control of your time, so much less stressed, and so much more empowered.
Pinky promise.
