Episode 198: My Number 1 Secret for Moving Past the Excuse of “I Don’t Have the Time”

Full Episode Transcription:

(00:07):
There’s one really big topic that I have a lot of people give me excuses for. So hopefully I don’t step on any toes during this episode, but I just wanna give you something to think about when you are trying to find time to start your Ditch the Classroom journey. If you are thinking about doing this, about quitting teaching and becoming a virtual assistant, but you feel like you just don’t have the time, you’re not alone. This is something I hear from a lot of people, but I want you to know that you absolutely can do this, whether you think you have the time or you don’t.

(01:51):
So I wanna give you the tools and strategies and advice to help you find these pockets of time so that you can create the life you love and ditch the classroom for good. So I have a question for you, and I want you to answer this truthfully to yourself. If you really tried, could you find the time? If you really took the time to sit down, analyze your life, figure out: Where am I hemorrhaging time? Where am I wasting it? What could I do better with my time? Could you find the time? There’s a quote that I love by Alan Cohen that says, “There are two kinds of people in this world. Those with reasons and those with results.” If you’re determined to hold on the life that you already have, feeling stuck in the classroom, not being fulfilled in it, then you can absolutely keep all of your reasons or excuses of why you can’t find the time for your business.

(02:42):
However, if you are ready to start making changes to lead you towards creating your dream life outta the classroom, then I have a few tips for you. One of the many benefits of working from home is that it doesn’t necessarily require 40 hours of work a week when you’re working as a virtual assistant, you don’t have to work a full 40 hour week. You’re not stuck sitting at your desk from-nine to-five every day like you are in a regular job. I personally know women who have built thriving businesses as a virtual assistant while only working an average of 10 hours a week. Okay, 10 to 20 hours. That’s really all you need. So let’s just say you’re taking weekends off, then that’s two hours per day. That’s not that much. Would you be able to find two hours in your day to do this?

(03:26):
Another benefit of being a virtual assistant is that the time that you spend working each day, it doesn’t have to be one solid chunk. You don’t have to sit at your desk at 10 and be stuck there until 12. If you can find pockets of time, then you can get all of your work done throughout the day. So if you have 10 minute gap here, a 30 minute gap here and so on, I bet you could find two hours of work time in your day. So I want you to take a moment, grab a piece of paper and write this down: If it’s important enough, I will make the time. If not, I will make an excuse. Let me say that again: If it is important enough, I will make the time. If not, I will make an excuse. I really want you to take a good look at what you spend your time on each week.

(04:14):
I’m actually gonna challenge you to write down every single thing that you do throughout your day for the next week, okay? So for the next seven days, I want you to write down every single thing you do from the moment you get up until the time you go to bed. And when you do this, I want you to be as specific as possible. So for example, I might write down that from 7:18 AM to 7:48 AM I was browsing Facebook and Instagram, and I actually do recommend doing this maybe in a note on your phone instead of an actual piece of paper because you pretty much always have your phone with you. So you can real quick, just jot that down and if you don’t have your paper by you, you might forget. Okay? So keep track of everything and then if you notice that you’re spending a lot of time on social media, I want you to ask yourself, what would it look like if instead of browsing Instagram, as soon as you wake up, you grabbed your laptop and spent half an hour looking for new positions outside of teaching that align with you?

(05:12):
Or what if you spent those 30 minutes working on a project for one of your clients you already have while you’re still working in the classroom? A lot of you I know are wanting to work as a virtual assistant as a side hustle right now until you get to the point where you can build up your income enough to quit teaching for good. So could you find 30 minutes in the morning to get your client work done before you go into the classroom? If you already do those 30 minutes as soon as you wake up, then bam, you already have a quarter of your workday accomplished and you haven’t even had breakfast yet. So now all you have to do is find another hour and a half throughout your day to get your work done. When you’re analyzing your time for the week, I want you to look for these big time sucks, social media, which obviously I have to mention that one first cuz a lot of people spend way too much time on social media, myself included.

(06:02):
Another one is checking your email. Maybe you find yourself constantly checking your email 20 times a day. What if you sent one specific time to do that in the evening or right before you leave the classroom to just knock it all out instead of just constantly checking it? Another big time-suck is just browsing the internet in general while watching tv. TV’s kind of a big one. I’m not saying you have to give up all of your relaxing time watching your favorite shows, but during a commercial, could you work for a few minutes during your favorite show that you’ve seen 10 million times? Could you be working on something while watching the show? Also, I want you to think about are you running 10 million different errands throughout the week?

(06:43):
How could you condense those? Could you order some stuff online so you don’t have to go spend time at the store? Could you have someone else do it? Could you do like grocery store pickup where you just like go pick it up real quick and somebody already did the shopping for you? Another question is, how much time are you spending on meal prep? Maybe if you spent one day making a bunch of meals for the week, then you don’t have to spend that time every other day making a new meal and you would just have to heat it up. If you’ve already got the meal made, you can also just have your family members heat it up for themselves. That way you don’t have to spend more time planning another dang dinner, cuz that is just never ending you guys. I know you know that.

(07:25):
So another really big one is using your cell phone for any reason. So responding to texts, talking, playing games, these can be big time-sucks as well. Again, I’m not saying you have to cut out all of that out of your day. You definitely deserve some time to relax and unwind, but when you take a really hard look at where you’re hemorrhaging your time, I am fairly certain that you’ll be able to find a couple 15 to 30 minute chunks that you could reduce down and dedicate to your journey out of the classroom. So I wanna take a second and just share some math with you. If you’re spending 30 minutes a day scrolling social media, that’s 182 hours a year, do you see where that time could be used more effectively?

(08:09):
I also wanna point out that if you complete this challenge of tracking your time and you tell me, “Arianna, I just really do not have the time, I am going all day long.” Then I have one thing to tell you: you are doing too much. There is another quote I love from Robin Sharma that says, “When you say yes to something, you are saying no to something else.” So if you’re saying yes to too many different things, but not the things that are the most important to you, like spending time with your kids or creating this virtual assistant business so you can spend more time with them. If you’re saying yes to all these other things, you are saying no to your family and to what’s most important. If you really cannot find the time anywhere in your day to build your dream life, maybe it’s time to start saying “no” to some things that are less important. So maybe you can just write down everything you do in a day and rank it from what’s most important to you to what’s not, and drop the things that aren’t.

(09:07):
Instead of saying, “Man, I wish I had the time to do what she does so I could eventually stay home with my kids.” I want you to flip that script and I want you to say, “Where could I make time to do this? Because this is so incredibly important to me.” Okay? So I really wanna hold you accountable to record your time for these next seven days. What are you spending your time on? Where can you find those pockets of time? Write it down. I want you to come and post this in our free Facebook community facebook.com/groups/ditchtheclassroom so I can celebrate with you that you did this challenge. If you’re ready to do this, I’m just so proud of you for taking this seriously and taking these big steps to follow your dreams and start your Ditch the Classroom journey. So I have one last question to ask you. Are you ready to make the time to build your dream life? Are you ready to work from the couch with your little ones playing around you? You can have it. You just have to find the time.