“Tell me, what is it you plan to do with your one wild and precious life?”*

I love this line from Mary Oliver’s poem “The Summer Day.” It’s funny, when I work with business owners and entrepreneurs to talk about time management and organization, their thoughts turn immediately to calendars and file folders and school supplies. Don’t get me wrong- I love those things, more than most people. A trip to Staples is a bit like Christmas come early. But that isn’t what time management and productivity is really about.

It’s about your one wild and precious life. We are all given the same amount of time: the golden rule is that there are only 24 hours in a day and only 60 minutes in an hour. That’s it. We all get the same deal. So why is it that some people struggle and never have enough time to do everything they want and love to do, and others seem to blaze ahead getting everything they dream of humming along towards reality?

The difference I see is that they know, without a doubt, the answer to the question above and they stick hard and fast to their answers. When we respect ourselves enough to value our time and our limitations as human beings with only 24 hours in a day, we start to make choices. Some of these are hard. Some of them mean saying no to things that might be fun, or that others may wish we would say yes to. And sometimes it means saying yes to things that make our hearts sing, but make our friends and loved ones wonder about our sanity. This is all good.

When I sit with a client, the first thing I want to know is what they love doing that they currently don’t have time for. “What matters to you that you feel you are missing out on?” I always ask. I have heard many answers: spending time with children or grandchildren, getting to see a movie on a regular basis, getting to read, wanting to travel and see the world. It doesn’t matter what your choice is, it only matters that you give yourself the room to make it.

Once we know this, it becomes much easier to look at all other commitments and see if it’s worth giving up on this dream or this loved activity in order to do something else, something that might be a “should.” As in, “I should be on this committee.” “I should go to this event.” “I should read this book before the one I am excited about.” If you ask yourself if these shoulds are more important than doing what you love with your one wild and precious life, you might surprise yourself with some different answers.

For just this next week, I’d like to issue a challenge to you: watch how you feel when you do everything you do during your day. What do you love about your work? Your time? Your life? And what do you miss and long for that’s missing? Can you make more space for these things by saying no to a few shoulds? Can you make your “Yes!” to those things that make you feel joyful louder than the one that comes out of obligation? Let’s see what beauty can come out of that… I dare you.

Caroline Donahue, founder of Remabulous Coaching - www.remabulouscoaching.com

*To read the full poem click HERE.