7. Lie #1 - "I Don't Have Time"

"I don't have time." How often do you find yourself defaulting to this excuse? Join me, Jenny Lytle RN, in this relatable episode of  The Nurses' Breakroom as we tackle the myth of being too busy. I'll share personal stories from my own life, like managing a household without a dishwasher while raising six kids, to show how our perceptions of time can be wildly inaccurate. Learn how a simple exercise, like timing how long it actually takes to unload the dishwasher, could change your entire outlook on time management.

We'll also discuss the mental clutter created by postponing minor tasks, drawing from my own aversion to drying the shower in our new home. This episode is packed with insights that encourage you to question your beliefs about time and discover practical solutions for a more productive life. Plus, I'm thrilled to introduce a new feature that allows you to send direct text messages for feedback and suggestions, making this podcast a true community-driven experience. Let's break free from the lies we tell ourselves and reclaim the time we didn't know we had!

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Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:18

Hello and welcome back to another episode of the Nurses' Breakroom with Jenny Lytle RN, and today we are going to start a series of something that I think is really important, and I know that a lot of us struggle with, especially when it comes to taking care of ourselves and de-stressing, and that is the lies that we tell ourselves. And I know that I have found myself doing this first one pretty frequently really, and it's when I have kind of looked into it a little bit more I realized that there are ways around it, and so the first one that we're going to start out with is I'm too busy or I don't have time, and right now I am planning on doing, like I said, a series of these, and the next ones will be I'll do it later. I don't know where to start. I don't have the resources. It won't make a difference. Self-care is selfish. I need to take care of others first. So I'm not sure exactly what order those are going to go in yet. But also, also, there is a new feature that I want to let you know about where you can in the episode, like right below where the episode starts, or in the show notes, and it may be different for different podcast players, but there is a link that says send a text, send us a text message, and when you do that, it comes directly to me and it's just a great way to be able to communicate and get your input and feedback. And I would love to hear from you. And especially, you know, if you have any, you know any constructive criticism, that's awesome. And if you have any ideas any maybe, if you have any, you know any constructive criticism, that's awesome. And if you have any ideas any maybe lies that you tell yourself or that you hear you know other people talking about that you feel like, oh, maybe that's not quite right.

Speaker 1: 2:33

So, jumping in to I don't have time. So for years, like when my kids were growing up, um, we didn't have a dishwasher and so we washed everything by hand and we had six kids at home and so that was, that was a lot of dishes, and so the way that we usually did it is the boys rotated through and they were the uh dryers and because really I didn't like drying and putting up but I didn't mind washing, but the whole thing was is okay, I'm going to keep washing as long as I have room to put them, but if you're not drying and you're not putting them up, you know if you start slacking, then when the dish drainer gets full, I'm done, and so that kept them pretty motivated too. And so I used to hear people complain about unloading the dishwasher and I thought seriously, like we're washing all these dishes by hand, how is unloading the dishwasher a big deal? Well, fast forward a few years and we had a dishwasher and it was wonderful. It was like, oh my gosh, we have this dishwasher. This makes everything so quick.

Speaker 1: 3:48

And then I got used to having the dishwasher and I found myself saying, oh, I don't want to unload the dishwasher. And it seemed like it was something that I mean obviously like unloading the dishwasher isn't fun. I mean maybe like unloading the dishwasher isn't fun. I mean maybe it is for some people and that's okay, but I would say to the average person it's probably not a super fun activity. And I'm and I thought I mean I just I really dreaded doing that and I thought this is ridiculous. You know, I mean I made fun of people that had those kinds of thoughts about it. And so one day the dishwasher was like I mean it was full and we had a good size dishwasher too, and so I thought I'm going to set a timer and I'm going to see how long this really takes me, and it took two minutes. Two minutes to unload the dishwasher and put things away. Now I mean, I was working at a decent speed, but I wasn't rushing. It just took two minutes and that was it, and that helped to change my thought process on this dishwasher issue uh, my thought process on this dishwasher issue. I mean, when it's something that, like you know, needs to be done and it takes up just a mental bandwidth to kind of have this discussion with yourself.

Speaker 1: 5:08

So I, nowadays, I have gotten into something else where I've started doing the same thing, and it is regarding taking a shower. Now I bathe regularly, but we moved about a year ago and the house that we have has hard water. Now we have a water softener, but there's still, you know, some rust in the water, and so one of the things that I know is that you know, when you dry out the shower afterwards, you know, after you're done taking it, then you don't have as much hard water and you know just all those mineral deposits and all that it just doesn't get gunky like it does otherwise, and so I know that, and we had just had the bathroom remodeled, so I knew that I wanted to keep it clean. But I also, like I hate doing that. And I mean it's like it's this thing in my head where I, each time I shower, I'm like, okay, am I going to dry this now. Like one time have I not dried it and that was because I just I literally was running like super late and so I didn't do it then.

Speaker 1: 6:31

But the rest of the time it gets in my head where I think, okay, am I going to do it this time? And so when I was on vacation, I was taking showers all the time because I didn't have to dry the shower out and I thought this is again. This feels kind of ridiculous. Like why am I spending time questioning whether or not I'm going to do something that I know I'm going to do, but it just still gives me that kind of off feeling and I feel like it takes all this time. So I came back and I thought I'm going to again set a timer and see how long it takes me to dry out my shower. And this is, you know, drying out the entire shower, like the things that are in it and the um, you know the bottom of the tub and the whole thing. And then I do, um, like every other day, I spray the shower curtain with the you know, like that daily shower cleaner stuff, um, just because I'm not drying the shower curtain, and it took a minute and a half, um, a minute and a half, a minute and a half to two minutes. I mean it was kind of right in there and again I thought, okay, two minutes for the amount of time that I am spending thinking about it, and that just seems like it's not serving me well.

Speaker 1: 7:58

Now, one thing that I did do was to um, I take out, so I'm kind of doing a like a modified curly girl method, and so I'm trying to figure out basically, like, what works best on my hair. I'm trying to not really, uh, blow dry or uh, you know, like heat style right now, and some days I'm really glad about that and other days it's a little frustrating, but that's okay because it is a process. And I found that I have a lot of different shampoos and conditioners, you know, as I'm trying different ones, and so I just have them sitting in a basket outside my shower and I just pull out the one that I'm using that day so that I'm not drying off. You know 12 different kinds of shampoo and conditioner and I'm the only one that uses my shower. My husband uses a different one, just because that works well for us.

Speaker 1: 8:50

But so all of this, you know, may not seem like it's very stress relieving and self-care related, but in talking to people and in, obviously, in my own life as well, that is that's the thing about. It is so many times it's these little things that can have an impact on us. It's these things that we just these little tapes that we have playing over and over in our head that take up time and energy, and it's not something that we really want to. That's not where we want to put our time and energy. So you know, and maybe for you it's something completely different, but I'm guessing that there is something that you have that you think okay, I don't, I don't really have time for this right now, and or maybe you know, I don't have time for this ever and again, to be completely transparent, like I know, I knew that I was going to be coming down here to record this episode about not having enough time, and do you know, what my head keeps saying, kept saying, was I don't have time to do that right now.

Speaker 1: 10:15

Well, I'll do it in a little bit.

Speaker 1: 10:16

I don't have time right now. Now. I keep all of my episodes short for a reason because I don't have a ton of extra time, and I know that you don't have a ton of extra time to listen to things. That and challenging that is powerful. So I just I encourage you to, you know, think about you know over the over the course of this day or over this next week, but really today, because, honestly, you're probably not going to think that much about it later in the week.

Speaker 1: 11:01

So when you listen to this, then just notice the times that you think I don't have time for that right now, or I'm too busy, and just pause for a moment and ask yourself am I?

Speaker 1: 11:19

Or, if it's something that you do repeatedly, that you feel like you know, maybe you have that little argument with yourself as well and you know, maybe just break out a timer and see how long does this take, and is the amount of time that it takes doing? I mean, is it better to just go ahead and get that out of the way instead of having this back and forth discussion with yourself all the time, like I have done. So I would love for you to you know, I'd love for you to send me a text and let me know what your thoughts are on this, what you have issues with in terms of this lie that we tell ourselves, and I look forward to continuing this series because I think it's so important. There are just things that we tell ourselves that don't serve us well, and so let's kind of challenge those and turn them around, and I hope you have a wonderful week and we will chat soon.