Episode 963: Why You Never Seem to Have Enough Time

[00:00:00] Scott Maderer: Thanks for joining me on episode 963 of the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:00:06] Travis Rosser: I'm Travis Rosser, the author of you Inc. The step-by-step guide for finding the business within you. I challenge you to invest in yourself, invest in others, develop your influence and impact the world by using your time, your talent and your treasures to live out your call.

[00:00:24] Having the ability to really find your gifts and calling is a key. And one way to be inspired to do that is to listen to this, the inspired stewardship podcast by my friend, Scott Maderer.

[00:00:37] And don't get me,

[00:00:38] Scott Maderer: I'm saying if you're working two jobs to put a roof over your head and food on your table, you run right out and quit your job so that you can go out and do something that feels. But what I am saying is until you identify a path towards that, you're going to stay feeling too busy, overwhelmed, and stressed out.

[00:00:59] But if you [00:01:00] identify a path and begin walking down that path, you'll immediately begin to feel better. Welcome.

[00:01:06] Travis Rosser: And thank you for joining us on the inspired stewardship podcasts. If you truly desire to become the person who God wants you to be, then you must learn to use your. Your talent and your treasures for your true calling and the inspired stewardship podcast.

[00:01:23] We'll learn to invest in yourself, invest in others and develop your influence so that you

[00:01:30] Scott Maderer: can impact the world.

[00:01:32] And today's episode about investing in others by stewarding your time. I talk with you about why we feel we never have enough. I also share why it's as much psychological as based on the clock. And I also give you some tips on what you can do. As we talk about stewarding your time. Wouldn't it be great.

[00:01:51] If you could support this podcast and do it without just taking too long, it turns out you can't. All you have to do is use inspired [00:02:00] stewardship.com/amazon. When you're ready to make a purchase via Amazon and a small commission, we'll come back to support the show. Just that quick. If you enjoy the show, when you are ready to buy from Amazon, just use inspired stewardship.com/.

[00:02:16] Nowadays, it seems like we look up at the end of the day and it's amazing that it's the entire day has passed the day's over and yet we've got nothing done. We're trying to figure out a time to schedule plans with others. And it doesn't seem like there's any time open on the calendar. Most people nowadays feel like we don't have enough time.

[00:02:38] And I wanted to talk about some of the reasons behind. First off, there's actually a study, a lot of studies. Now that show that on average, American workers are working 47, 48 or 50 hours somewhere in that neighborhood instead of a 40 hour work week, even though there's a lot of research that shows that over 40 hours tends to be less.[00:03:00]

[00:03:00] And in fact, if you look at the spread, many people are spending 70 or more hours every week working, especially if you include their second job or a side hustle kind of jobs as well. And this has a couple of distinct effects. First off you are maybe working more hours than you really need to, because you're trying to make yourself seem a little more indispensable to your company, or just because.

[00:03:27] There's a need to be busy or sometimes it's even just because you have no else. No other thing to do you fill up your schedule with lots of busy stuff, not filling up your schedule with lots of important. Another study that's out there shows that there's a lot of extra tasks that we do. And we often times feel pressured about these tasks.

[00:03:53] If they tend to be looked at by us as tedious, repetitive, or an interesting when you're doing [00:04:00] tasks that you're not really jazz to do you end up feeling like you have less. Stress plays a massive role in how we feel about time. And when we feel like we've got conflicting goals and we're pulled in multiple directions and we're not in alignment, that stress makes us feel like we don't have enough time.

[00:04:23] And I've talked before about how social media could create that feeling of FOMO. That feeling of I'm always missing out. I want to do something else that I'm not doing right now. A lot of times, too, you're not paying attention to the time that you are actually using and where you're using it. And so you'll spend hours on something simple and repetitive, and that's rewarding, like checking Facebook when you're not actually getting the work done that you need to do.

[00:04:54] There's also studies that show that when you lack autonomy, when you don't feel like you [00:05:00] have any control over your own time, That begins to make you feel more and more out of control. If you feel like you have the ability to make choices about your time, then suddenly you begin to feel more in control.

[00:05:17] And it's not necessarily saying no to doing something and creating more free time. It's just having the ability to choose when and what you do. The truth is all of these things can affect to you and your time, but notice that many of them don't necessarily actually have anything to do with the number of hours that you work or the amount of time that you put in.

[00:05:40] The first one that we talked about in terms of 40 hours a week does, but the rest of them all have a psychologic. Component the fact that we feel overwhelmed and busy and stressed out and not engage. And like we have no autonomy is as much psychological as it is based on the clock. [00:06:00] And the truth is you can do things about that.

[00:06:04] You can begin to find ways. To block out social media. You can begin to find thing ways to say no to some things so that you can say yes to the most important things. That's what we talk about over and over again on this show is the way you can do that by paying attention to where you're spending your time by focusing in on what your real goals and values are by doing the deep work.

[00:06:35] You begin to open up the feeling of having more time and the reality of having more time, both the clock and your psychology begins to align every time I've taken on extra things, even whenever it was something I wanted to do. And I thought it was important if it wasn't in alignment with my overall goals, [00:07:00] I end up feeling stressed out, tired, frustrated.

[00:07:05] And too busy to really do what I'm supposed to do. And every time that happens, I end up feeling like I don't have enough time, even though I often times do. And the truth is that's the same for you. So the first step and the most important step is always to really sit down with your calendar and your to-do list and your other task and figure out what are my priorities, what are my values?

[00:07:36] What is really important to me and what can I do to begin to bring these things into a. And don't get me wrong. I'm not saying if you're working two jobs so that you could put a roof over your head and food on your table, you run right out and quit your job so that you can go out and do something that feels better.

[00:07:54] What I am saying is until you identify a path towards that, you're going to [00:08:00] stay feeling too busy, overwhelmed, and stressed out. But if you identify a path and begin walking down that path, you'll immediately begin to feel. And that's what I teach. That's what we try to do. It's not about living out your calling magically.

[00:08:19] It's about doing the hard work, doing the deep work so that you truly can live your life in alignment and do what God calls you to do. Thanks for listening.

[00:08:30] Travis Rosser: Thanks so much for listening to the inspired stewardship podcast. As a subscriber and listener, we challenge you to not just sit back and

[00:08:39] Scott Maderer: passively listen,

[00:08:41] Travis Rosser: but act on what you've heard and find a

[00:08:44] Scott Maderer: way to live your calling. If you like this episode on the stewardship of time, be sure to sign up for our stewardship

[00:08:53] Travis Rosser: of time

[00:08:53] Scott Maderer: tips series by going to inspired [00:09:00] stewardship.com/time or texting 4 4 2, 2, 2.

[00:09:05] Time tips,

[00:09:07] Travis Rosser: and that'll get you our best tips on stewarding your time until next time, invest your time, your talent and your treasures. Develop your influence and impact the

[00:09:21] Scott Maderer: world.