10 minutes late to your doctor appointment?  “No problem, everyone waiting expects delays and half their day shot.”   Three days late in getting back on that email?  “Not a big deal.  They’ll understand, since their email is likely overloaded too.”  A week late getting a project complete?  “I got it handled.  Extra time was factored it in at the beginning of the proposal.”  Not exercising day after day?  “Not the best, but I’m getting to it.  Can’t get there when there’s so much to do.”  Etc. Etc.

Are excuses merely tolerated or do they rule?  Unfortunately they rule—because we let them.  As a culture, we’re so conditioned to the fact that someone will have a reason for not doing what they said they would, that we’ve told ourselves this behavior is natural and something we must accept…so we do.

It seems we’re no longer able to regulate our own time and we often operate as if we’re at the mercy of it.  We seem to have lost the ability to make firm commitments and stick to them. 

Look more closely at the source of your excuses and find more effective ways to self-manage.  Rather than overbooking so you’re running late, maybe you should choose not to do that one extra thing.  Instead of postponing responses to important emails, you could set a fixed time to review your inbox and ignore all other miscellaneous emails until you have time scheduled to get back to them.  If you set your most important projects at the head of the list, then wouldn’t your time be most devoted there?  The project might even be completed a little early.  What a concept!  And ignoring your exercise is just plain shooting yourself in the foot.  Afterall, you need your health to get all your stuff done.

But then, part of the problem is thinking you have to do it all.  Then when you can’t, you make up an excuse so you don’t tarnish your image as superachiever to others.  Try out saying instead, “thanks, can’t take that on right now, even though I’d like to help.”  OR don’t give any excuse at all.  French author, Jules Renard, said, “The only man who is really free is the one who can turn down an invitation to dinner without giving an excuse.” 

Be courteous to others, but don’t confuse that with your reliance on lame excuses for not keeping your word.  If you’re confident in your behaviors and choices and manage your time more effectively, then you rule and not your excuses! 

Tags: commitments, excuses, self-manage, Time Management

This entry was posted on Friday, December 18th, 2009 at 5:35 pm and is filed under Personal and Professional Growth, Time Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.