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Idea · From the Margen catalogue

You're not short of time: you're short of a filter

“I don't have time” almost always means, if you're honest, “this isn't important enough to me to take it away from something else”. And plenty of times that's perfectly fine: you can't do everything, and choosing is healthy.

The trouble starts when you say “I don't have time” about what does matter to you deep down — reading, calling someone, moving, thinking — and at the same time hand whole hours, unfiltered, to what you won't remember tomorrow.

Time isn't managed with more hours: there aren't any. It's managed with a single question, asked in time: “If this takes my evening, what am I not going to do?”. Every yes is also a no to something else. The question is whether you're choosing the no or someone is choosing it for you.