After hearing me lament about not having enough time to do something I wished I could do, a former boss that told me something that seemed completely ridiculous to me at the time.  He said, “We all have the same amount of time.”
 
That statement really annoyed me.  There I was – a newly single mother of two, juggling a full-time job, recent move and just life in general.  There he was – a millionaire, with a staff at both the office and at home, who spent weekends on his yacht and didn’t even have children.  How dare he say that we had the same amount of time?
 
However, I eventually understood what he was saying.  We do all have the same amount of time.  I have 24 hours in a day.  And so do you. 
 
What is different though is what we do with our time.  My boss had a life that while comparatively more glamorous than mine, was relatively simple.  And he was very careful about the new things he added to his to-do list.  Very careful.
 
On the other hand, I tend to overfill my life with things to do. I fall into the trap of believing that I have to do so many things that I really do not have to do….these may be things I want to do, that I think I can do better than someone else or I think someone else is expecting me to do.  So that leaves me with way more to do than I could ever get done, not to mention get done well.
 
I think a lot of us busy moms work so hard to get as much as possible done, as quickly as possible, in order to reach that elusive point in time when we have done enough to not have so much to do anymore.   Sounds a bit insane, doesn’t it?
 
So that’s what I am working on changing these days.  Instead of trying to do more in order to get more organized, be a better mother or even be happier – I’m moving towards doing less.   Because I’ve been looking at this all wrong for too long.  I’ve been thinking that I needed to manage my time better.  But it’s not time I need to manage…it’s what I have to do that I need to manage.

After all, I’ll never get more time.  I’ll always have just 24 hours in each day.  But I can change how much I expect myself to do in those 24 hours.  For now on, it’s going to be a lot less.