What do you REALLY care about?

If I only had the time, you say to yourself, I would (fill in the blank): start writing that story/ take an EdX course/ get to know my neighbor/ learn tagine cooking/ volunteer at the homeless shelter…

As soon as I finish (fill in the blank): the laundry, scrolling through all these Facebook updates, remodeling the kitchen, this one big project at work, I’ll find time to  ______, you tell yourself.

If I could just clear the decks, you tell yourself, then I’d have the time to get to what is really important to me.

STOP. The people who win Pulitzer prizes, the people who win Nobel prizes, the people who start new businesses, who exhibit their art work, who go back to school at age 40 (50,60,70), who teach themselves how to play the piano, who invent, discover, create, lead — all of them, like you, like me, have 24 hours in a day. That’s it. They don’t do more because they have more time. We all have the same amount of time. It is how we use it.

Here’s a thought: Instead of doing everything other than what you really want to do — on the mistaken notion that you must “clear the decks” in order to get to the important stuff — START with the important stuff. Put the important thing, the passion, the dream, the challenge, at the center (or as close to the center) of your daily life as possible. And then make the rest of the day fit in around that. That’s the idea of the target drawing above. (And yes, you’re right, I was not referring to myself when I mentioned “people who exhibit their art work.”)

I am not saying that you paint your masterpiece while your children eat from the dog’s bowl. I am saying that, after you do what you absolutely must do, you elevate your passion to the very next spot. You make a space (that is, a time) for it rather than hoping you have time “later.”  Because later never comes.  Because the decks will never be cleared. There will always be another call to make, another errand to run, the emails in your in-box, those pesky weeds overrunning your garden.

Life doesn’t stop, or simplify itself, to allow you time to pursue your passion. Life, in fact, has an uncanny way of getting in the way. But that’s only if you construct your days around everything you have to do that is not what you say to yourself (and others) you really really want to do. If you construct your days around that passion/ challenge/ dream, then the question is not “when will I have time to (fill in the blank with that one thing you say you really really want to do)” but rather “when will I have time to vacuum the living room carpet?”

It’s a sure bet that at the end of the day –- and at the end of your life – you won’t be wishing you spent more time with the Hoover.