There are only 24 hours in every day.  You cannot add a single minute more to the 1,440 minutes you have every day.  So if you’re stressed out and maxed out, how can you possibly find the time to do more?  There are only a few real options:

a) Sleep Less
b) Delegate More
c) Say NO More Often
d) Give Up Things

Option A doesn’t seem appealing, especially when there are studies that point to health issues from not sleeping enough.

Option B is a clear winner if you can do it.  Try and delegate some work beyond just menial tasks because the bigger, more higher profile tasks are the ones where people willingly take on the work.

Option C is something that is close to impossible to do when you’re trying to climb the career ladder, but it’s a practice that Senior Executives do all the time.  Focus on what matters and try and say NO to the stuff that doesn’t.

Option D is all about the things that you’re currently doing that do not add value to your life and/or are the tremendous time sucks in your life.  Number one is usually the TV.  Surfing the internet, constantly checking email, interruptions, lack of organization, being tired (because you’re not as effective), lack of planning (so you can’t just jump into what needs to get done), multi-tasking (because it doesn’t work), procrastination (because you put off starting or start and stop the task) and meetings are a few others.

You can give up most of the above list or severely limit them.  Don’t think you can?  Think again.  Make your meetings 30 minutes instead of one hour.

Spend one hour cleaning up your office and throw away stuff you don’t need or never use.

Pick 5 shows that you will watch religiously and cut out all the rest.  Don’t think you can do it?  Fine, pick 3.  I’m half-kidding.

Turn off your TV at night and go to bed 30 minutes early.

Write out a To Do list the night before and list out your top 3 tasks you’ll get done before lunch time.

I could go on and on about Option D, so I’ll leave you to put one of these ideas into effect because I don’t want to waste any more of your precious time.

I’ve been busy lately – very busy – and figuring out how to prioritize tasks isn’t easy.  I’m sure you’ve had the dilemma of too much to do and you struggle with how to prioritize your life.

Personally, on the work front, things are definitely heating up in a good way.  Spring is just around the corner with a spell of great weather this past week affirming the fact that it’s almost time to bust out the golf clubs.  I also will begin to run more on the weekends, in preparation for my town’s 5k run in June.  I also have Yankee tickets every other week during the workweek.  These are a lot of “also” things that are being added to my normally hectic work week.

My point?  I have a lot of extra stuff and time that needs to be devoted to me and my interests.

What about the wife and my family and my friends?  Well, I’ll be at the Yankee games with my best friends and golfing with my brother-in-law, so semi-checks there.

So check on the friends and golfing buddy, but what about my wife, my parents and my gazillion nieces and nephews?

I have to make time for them, not because I have to, but because I want to.  It’s easy to forget to do this, especially when it’s nice out or you have the chance to work on a blog or a side project.  You can get away with this in the short-term – spending a day at a Starbucks writing or going for a long run on a Sunday morning or playing a round of 18 instead of 9 – but you can’t do it long-term.

You’ve got to make the “sacrifice” and set aside time to be with those that mean the most to you.  I hate the word SACRIFICE, because it shouldn’t be.  You have to change the value you give to these other activities.  They are just as important, if not more important than a solitary run, a blog post or working on world domination.  Those things can come soon enough, but you can’t get back the time you didn’t dedicate to those you love.

This is just my take on the importance of making time for loved ones.  You can get to the other stuff soon enough without losing momentum.  Think about it when faced with your own time crunch where you have to make the decision of which activity to do this weekend.  I’m sure you’ll figure out how to prioritize effectively.

Choose wisely.

If deadlines stress you out, there’s something you can do about it.  The first thing to realize is that deadlines have a funny way of approaching and usually you could have planned better to avoid the stress from running out of time to get things done on your project.  The best way to plan for the unforeseen and for crazy projects is to start earlier.

Even if you think you have loads of time to do something, start it today.  Yesterday would have been a better day to start, but today – right now in fact – is the best time to start a new project that’s on your TO DO list.

Send an email requesting information, sit down and scope out the work to be done, reach out to a colleague who has done a project similar to you, buy a book on the topic and some other small task that you can do to start the ball rolling.

What are you waiting for?  Pick a project and do something toward moving it forward.  You’ll be happy you started today when your project comes in under the deadline with time to spare.