“I don’t have enough time.”
I used to say this every day, watching my entrepreneurial dreams slip away whilst I stayed trapped in my consulting job.
The irony? I was working 50-hour weeks, yet my side business wasn’t growing. Then, a health scare forced me to cut my working hours in half.
Surprisingly, that’s when everything changed. In just 4 hours a day, I accomplished more than I had in those exhausting 60-hour weeks.
The secret wasn’t finding more time — it was finally understanding how to use the time I had.
The Productivity Paradox: Why Being “Busy” Is Making You Less Productive
Here’s a shocking statistic: According to research by RescueTime, knowledge workers are only productive for 2 hours and 48 minutes during a typical 8-hour workday. The rest is lost to meetings, notifications, and tasks that feel urgent but aren’t important.
We’re caught in what I call the “busy trap” — confusing activity with progress. We fill our days with tasks because being busy makes us feel productive. But here’s the uncomfortable truth I learned during my forced downsizing: Most of what we do each day doesn’t move the needle.
