How to Find Time for Personal Reflection When You "Just Don't Have Time"

Aug 22

I keep hearing my clients say, "I just don't have time." They value reflection, they value quiet, they know that there is something really special about being in communion with themselves and also being in communion with God. They know that the best guidance and their absolute clarity come from time with and for themselves. But they have had a really hard time finding time.

In their minds, every waking moment is spent doing things they have to do. It's work, it's meetings, it's agendas. They don't know what it's like to be in a space where there is no agenda.

Let me tell you why that's happening.

The Formula That Keeps Us Stuck

Many of us have been taught that hard work leads to success. We have followed a formula that looks like: Time multiplied by effort equals success.

Because that's the belief we've subscribed to, any decrease in either time or effort feels like a threat to our success. And because we've identified ourselves as successful—because other people have regarded us as successful—any decrease in time or effort on producing doesn't just feel like a threat to our career, it feels like a threat to our identity.

It feels like a personal threat, like somebody is standing over us in the dark. So what do we do? We turn on the lights and we get back to work.

Our identity, our livelihood, our very essence is tied to or tangled up in our success. If we continue following this time multiplied by effort formula, we'll never slow down. We'll never work less hard.

An Alternative: Aligned Work Leads to Significance

What I want to offer you is an alternative to "hard work equals success." And if you try on this alternative, you'll find that taking time for yourself and reducing your effort—not achieving by force, not constantly depleting yourself—will feel less like a threat and more like life-generating breath.

I want you to feel that for a second. Close your eyes. Take a deep breath. One more for good measure. See how that feels?

Here's the alternative: Aligned work leads to significance.

Significance is impact with ease. It's meaning with margin. And it happens not when you spend countless hours working or working harder or waking up earlier to squeeze in a little bit of something for yourself with little to no gas in the tank.

Significance requires that you ask and answer only one question: What am I uniquely positioned to do?

What work is a perfect match to my experience? What conversations stimulate me, activate me, and energize me?

The Mini Audit: Your Three-Step Process

When you look at your calendar for the week, you are going to look through that lens and conduct what I call a mini audit. You’re on a mission to find one or two things on your calendar that are not aligned with you.

You’ll know they aren’t aligned when you look at them and think, "Oh, here's one thing on my calendar. I look at that and I'm like, that's not uniquely suited to me. A lot of people could do that. That does not energize me. That does not interest me. That does not leverage my skills. That does not leverage my strengths. That does not require my unique perspective and my insights."

I want you to identify those things. Just one, maybe two. And once you see them, I want you to ask yourself these questions:

Question 1: Can I do this in a way that is aligned to me?

Let me give you an example. You might have a 30-minute meeting on your calendar. Maybe you could just say, "Here are my insights on this. Why don't you take a stab at it with this in mind and come back to me?"

Maybe you look at the meeting and say, "You know what, the question you're really trying to grapple with, I'm not the best person to tackle that. How about you talk to this person over here, get their insights, and then come back to me with what you think. Just send me an email that walks me through where you plan on going and I can give you my thoughts and feedback that way."

You've just eliminated 30 minutes off your calendar doing something that's somebody else's work and you've invited them to come back to you in a way that does align with your perspective and the way that you work.

The way that you can test this is: Can I do this with ease?

Note: “Ease” is not easy. Ease is without an energetic drain. Is it going to deplete me to do this thing? If the answer is no, then that is with ease.

The things we are on the lookout for are those things that drain your energy disproportionately to the energy that they give you. If it drops your energy down ten points and only gives you two points of energy, now you're operating at a negative. That's not ease.

Question 2: Who is this aligned to?

If you cannot do it in a way that is aligned to you, then ask: Who is this aligned to?

We're not talking about who just has capacity. We're not passing off things because this person has capacity and you don't. The question is: Who is uniquely positioned? Who is in a better position? Whose skills, strengths, perspectives, and insights are a perfect match for this thing?

Then you talk to that person. You say, "Hey, I actually think this is more aligned to your voice, your perspective, your insights. Can you take a look at this and let me know what you think?"

Off your plate.

Question 3: Is this protecting my success?

If it's not aligned to you, and it's not aligned to somebody else you know, then the third pressure test is: Is this something that falls into that time multiplied by effort success formula?

Is this something that I am doing to protect my success? Is this something that I am doing to prove or uphold or maintain my status?

If it is one of those things, it's like drilling a hole in your own boat. It is consuming your time. It is making you work 10 times harder to go nowhere.

And those are the things—maybe you have one of them on your calendar. If you do, I invite you to cancel it.

I know, I know. It feels some kind of way. But here's the thing: You are not going to get off of the time multiplied by effort hamster wheel until you put a stake in the ground and stop the wheel.

You have been drilling holes in your own boat, subscribing to this belief that hard work leads to success. And you got a boat full of holes trying to row your way forward. You have got to stop drilling holes and you've got to plug some of the holes that you've already drilled.

The Result: Time + Energy + Alignment

If you ask those three things, what you should see at the end of your mini audit is a calendar where you're like, "Oh, there's a hole at the bottom of my boat. Here's something that I'm not best positioned to do, but John over there is best positioned to do."

Then you look at something on your calendar and you're like, "Oh, this right here? That excites me. That energizes me. It's a good use of my strengths. It's a good use of my talents. That's where I want to spend my energy this week."

That's how you find time. Not only do you find time, but you also find aligned activities that give you energy. And if those things give you energy, then you enjoy your work 10 times more than you would paddling extra hard while also drilling holes at the bottom of your boat.

And If You’re An (Over)Achiever Like Me…

If you are an achiever—and we're getting out of that overachiever, do-all-the-things mode—I want you to add one thing to your calendar.

I want you to think: What's one thing that I could look forward to this week? Something that just lights me up, excites me. Something that would feel like I'm cheating to do it in the middle of the day.

It could be something like:

I'm actually going to go get ice cream in the middle of the day. Just because.
I'm actually going to call a good friend of mine who I've been missing and really wanting to talk to in the middle of the day. Just because.

Look at your calendar. After you've done the mini audit, cleared up some space, plugged a hole that was in your boat, and then add something that makes you shimmy. It feels like you're cheating a little bit. Add it to your calendar.

And then to safeguard it, to protect it, to make it sacred—tell your executive assistant that nothing, nothing is more important than that time you have blocked on your calendar.

If you're anything like most of my clients, your executive assistants are waiting for you to let go a little bit. To cut up. To be a little sneaky in the best possible way. So by having this conversation with your EA and saying, "Look, we're going to put it on the calendar and we're going to hold that time sacred," I imagine your EA is going to be like, "Ooh, yes, please. Let's do that."

This is a way that you can get an hour on your schedule while also getting energy back. And if you take the bonus, you're making an energetic deposit. You are teaching yourself that not only can you take time for yourself, not only can you work less hard, but you can also do things that refuel you and have it feel good and be supported in the process.

That's how you get an hour back. You get an hour back plus energy and you have a process for looking at your calendar every single week and conducting a mini audit.

It’s Time to Reclaim Your Time and Lead with Alignment

If this notion of auditing your calendar and gaining energy seems really exciting to you, and you want a deeper dive into how aligned leaders make time for personal reflection without sacrificing their effectiveness, I've created something specifically for you.

Beyond Busy: How Aligned Leaders Make Time for Personal Reflection will help you put the mini-audit into practice. It includes a bonus 20 Reflection Questions for Aligned Leaders to help you get to know yourself on a deeper level. These tools will help you give yourself the time and space you need to show up more fully, lead more effectively, and create the impact you are meant to have with ease.

Grab the Guide and Put Yourself On Your Calendar