A recent No More Mondays podcast was particularly inspiring to me. Andy Traub usually does this podcast from his office with all the appropriate equipment, processes it and has it posted by his assistant. This time, however, he recorded it while sitting in his van in the parking lot of a coffee shop. He did this because he was limited on time and to prove a point.

How often do you find yourself saying that you don’t have time? I try to catch myself and recognize when I do this. We all have the same number of days in the week and hours in the day. What we have to do is to take time. The time is there, but it is up to us to decide what to do with it.

Andy says, “if we wait for the perfect time, we seriously limit our productivity.” He suggests that we work when we can. Make use of every possible minute. When I was in school, I would rarely go anywhere without a notebook so that I could study if I had a few minutes of down time. Andy says, “Great people do great work consistently because they do work consistently.”

He shares what happens when you take time.

(1) You will learn by doing instead of planning. “Planning is not doing. Doing is doing.” We must do something! He says that “tomorrow is an excuse.” Why put it off? Just do it!

(2) You will sleep better when you take the time to do things and don’t procrastinate. It is a wonderful feeling to lie down at night knowing that I have accomplished something significant that day.

(3) You will get stuff done. It will become a habit to create when you just do it. “When you take time you don’t live a life of regret.”

One of Andy’s statements really resonates with me, “The more resistance you get to taking the time to do something, the more important the task actually is.”

How are you going to take time today? What are you going to do?