{
  "$type": "site.standard.document",
  "description": "Time Debt happens when you sell more hours than you have — and the only way out is to say no, cancel meetings, cut projects by 50%, and delete overdue tasks.",
  "path": "/articles/time-debt/",
  "publishedAt": "2019-09-07T02:25:49.000Z",
  "site": "at://did:plc:jznynyzgerlqmdbbj33o7wfs/site.standard.publication/3mnll3icujb2z",
  "tags": [
    "Business Operations"
  ],
  "textContent": "“What is Time Debt?“\n\nTime Debt is when you don’t have enough hours in the day to get things done, so you raid your Time Banks and then steal more time through a Time Heist.\n\nYou’re here because you’ve run out of time.\n\nYou’ve sold your time to too many clients, projects, and obligations.\n\nSo? You go into Time Debt.\n\nYou raid your Time Banks\n\nYou work a weekend.\n\nYou keep working weekends.\n\nEvenings get raided, too.\n\nLate nights become regular. You revel in getting into bed early.\n\nMeetings get rescheduled. Expectations get renegotiated.\n\nYou slide further into time debt.\n\nYou start to do drastic things.\n\nTime Poor\n\nWhen you’re Time Poor, you don’t have enough time, so you start skipping on obligations and commitments:\n\nExercise\nHobbies\nSleep\nFriendships\nRegular practices, like Yoga or Meditation\nMarketing your business\n\nWhen you’re Time Poor, the easiest thing to do is stop managing your pipeline.\n\nIt’s easy to pull time from marketing. You don’t see the effects of your marketing (or your lack of marketing) for a month or three.\n\nAnd if you’re client-rich? Then it’s easy to ignore your marketing. Why focus on it, when you’re paying down your Time Debt to your clients?\n\nYou pull time from marketing. You don’t notice it yet, but your leads start to thin out.\n\nGetting out of Time Debt\n\nThere ain’t no such thing as a free lunch, friend-o.\n\nIf you want to get out of Time Debt, you need to spend less time.\n\nCut the time you’re spending on your obligations, commitments, and worries.\n\nIt’s time for a Time Heist\n\nStart saying no\n\nStart tracking your “No“s. Say no to every project, commitment, or opportunity that shows up. Give yourself 1 point for each Significant No1.\n\nStop deferring, start declining\n\nIf it’s good enough to do later, it’s good enough to say ‘no’ to today. Then, when you’ve paid off your time debt, see if it’s still worth doing (or needs doing).\n\nCancel meetings\n\nYou can’t kick them to forward to ‘future you” through a reschedule. You need to cancel the meetings.\n\nWhen you defer or reschedule a meeting, you’re stealing time from your future self.\n\nKick a week of meetings into the future? Nice. Now you’ll get caught up.\n\nBut it’s all on credit.\n\nYour future self has to deal with those deferred meetings on top of their regular meetings.\n\nReview projects and cut, cut, cut\n\nHow many projects do you have on the go right now?\n\nSit down and make a list. Write down all the projects that come to mind.\n\nGet ready to cut your total projects by 50% or more.\n\nEach of your projects is something that you’re spending time on. You’re either working at it or worrying about it.\n\nWhat have you left untended? What have you safely ignored?\n\nIf it’s survived this long, it’s either going to thrive or die on its own.\n\nFree yourself of that worry.\n\nSet the weeds of worry on fire. It’s the only way you’ll survive.\n\nReview your overdue tasks and delete, delete, delete\n\nIf it hasn’t gotten done by now, you aren’t going to do it.\n\nIf you keep rescheduling it for the future, delete it.\n\nYes, someone will care. So what?\n\nJust delete it.\n\nIf it’s a client project that you can’t get to, maybe you’ll need to refund some money.\n\nHave a conversation with your client about how you can realistically help them (or, can’t help them).\n\nFree yourself of worrying about that things that you’re never going to get to. Be happy.\n\nDo the hard and necessary thing\n\nSay no.\n\nFree yourself.\n\nExcelsior!\n\nKai\n\nThank you, Patrick! ↩",
  "title": "Time Debt 🕰️ 💸"
}