If you really want to do something, you'll find a way. If you don't, you'll find an excuse - Jim Rohn

Excuses paralyse productivity and progress. At work the 2 biggest excuses are:

I’m too busy
I don’t have enough time

It’s simply inaccurate to infer that everyone isn’t busy as many workers are. Conversely, excess capacity exists when you know how to leverage it. Therefore, we should question whether busyness and time excuses are either fact or fiction, patterns, behaviours or dare I say are they just a cop out?

At work, there’s a degree of flexibility open to most white-collar workers in determining the work that’s prioritised within timeframes. There’s also feedback mechanisms to highlight developmental needs. Successful people don’t make excuses, instead they find a way to achieve outcomes.

Rather than tolerating a culture of excuses, effort should focus on reducing overwhelm and increasing clarity. Three things to do are:

Set priorities based on outcomes – founded on what’s important and is going to make the greatest impact
Achieve the predetermined outcomes – this is where discipline and tenacity are critical to increasing credibility and confidence
Plan for proactive and the reactive – it’s obvious to plan for work you know about (proactive) but you also need to plan for the unexpected and unscheduled important work that you are unable to plan for (reactive). Determine the typical percentage of your time that needs to be set aside each week for this reactive work and allow time for it (you might not know the specific tasks just that something pops up each week)

To get more done eliminate the busyness and time excuses.