1,000 Days of Music - Day 21: Time

Time is a recurring issue when reaching for a challenge goal. I’m always worried that I won’t have enough time to “get it all done.” I’ve been through periods when I’ve obsessed about time management. I know all about 80/20, focusing on the 20 percent of the effort that generates 80 percent of the results. I’ve read about the 20-mile march, having the discipline to keep a sustainable pace. Yet I never seem to have time to accomplish everything I want to do.
Unlike money, time is a finite commodity. We all have the same twenty-four hours in every day. We may not all have cooks and maids to do some of our work for us, but we all have the same amount of time. If the amount of time we have is finite, then the feeling of not having enough must be all about perception and unrealistic expectations. I once read that time management is not about managing time but managing tasks. Maybe it’s really all about managing expectations.
For me, it’s about capturing the essence of what I want to accomplish and letting go of some fixed idea of specific results. Maybe the true challenge lies not in how much we get done each day, but how much we leave undone.