There Is Never Enough Time. Never!

Even though I don’t know you as well as I would like, I am aware you have a serious problem. It gnaws on you every day. It’s unrelenting.
You don’t have enough time.

All the great fundraisers fight the incessant tick of the clock. It is their enemy.
How is this possible? What’s going on in life?
There are new methods and tools to make life easier. Computers that can supply information faster than you can absorb it or use it. iPads and iPhones with over 400,000 applications. Twitter and e-mail. E-mails by the dozens. By the hundreds. Unlimited channels and no television.
It’s a roller coaster ride. And you can’t get off. High achiever fundraisers would like to spend much more time just sitting with their feet propped up on a desk, and thinking. But they can’t. There simply isn’t enough time.
The great fundraisers crave more time for planning and just plain dreaming. But life and the demanding schedule is too filled for that.
They carry the heavy burden of feeling there is so much to do and so few hours in the day to do it. Their ocean is so big. Their rowboat is so small.
Like you, they abhor procrastination. You consider it the art of keeping up with yesterday. You remember some wag saying, “I would procrastinate, but I don’t have the time for it.”
The great fundraisers are jealous with their time and guard it with their lives. What they want most of all, the greatest present possible, is to have 27 hours to the day, and 8 days to the week.
They understand how to use their time most efficiently and gift-effectively, like packing a suitcase— small things in small places. They have read dozens of articles about using time wisely. But their bag is packed to the fullest.
They understand that time is life. They need to spend more and more time making contacts and making calls. Instead, they are constantly caught up in the thick of thin things.
They are a one-person fire department, putting out blazes and rescuing the situation from dire circumstances. The concepts of working faster, harder, and smarter don’t work at all. Attempting to control the clock becomes an impossible act of frustration.
There is an answer. My great fundraisers all talked to me about it. First of all, no matter how time-avaricious they are in their work, they must leave room for a personal life.
Secondly, they must simply accept that fact that it won’t all get done. It never will. Accept it . . . and get on with life.