The number one reason why people say they cannot meditate is: “I don’t have time.” Today, I’m going to bust this excuse wide open.

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I’ve been leading a meditation group at work now for some time. As I head out to the meditation room, I carry a meditation bench that my husband gave me. It’s really lovely and it always attracts attention and starts a conversation. And, I’d say 9 times out of 10, that conversation involves someone saying to me, “yeah, I’d like to meditate, but I don’t have time.”

Do you use this excuse? Sometimes, I do, too. Well, it’s tough love day, everyone. I’m here to tell you if you’re using this excuse, you are lying to yourself.

We all have 24 hours per day to fill up with activities. So, why do some people have time and others don’t? It’s simple. Those who take the time are prioritizing meditation over other things. Those who want to meditate, but don’t take the time to do it, are prioritizing other things over meditation.

Next time you’re tempted to say, “I don’t have time to meditate right now,” try saying, “meditation isn’t a priority for me right now.”
Two Steps to Finding Enough Time
First, you need to figure out whether meditation really is important to you. If you decide to meditate because someone else wants you to do it, you’ll have a hard time committing. If you decide to try meditation because it’s something you “should” do, you’ll have a hard time committing.

Ask yourself, “do I want to create a meditation habit?” “Do I believe that there are benefits to meditating?” If the answer is yes, then you can confidently move to step two. If the answer is no, you can try to move to step two or you can decide not to pursue a meditation habit until you come to a point where you actually want to do it.

Step two is to find the time. This step involves examining how you’re using your time now. For a day or two or three, write down everything you do and note how long you spend doing it. Don’t labour over this. Don’t worry about timing yourself down to the minute. Just make notes as best you can. This spreadsheet might be helpful:

Excel spreadsheet
Google Docs sheet
PDF file

But, don’t use the priority column just yet.

Once you’ve tracked your time for at least one day, go back and give a priority rating to each activity. Use a scale of 0 to 5 where:

0 = not at all important to me
1 = a tiny bit important to me
2 = a little bit important to me
3 = moderately important to me
4 = very important to me
5 = extremely important to me

Notice how the priority ratings are all about how important the activity is to you, not to other people.

Presumably, if you decided to commit to a meditation habit, you’d rate meditation as priority 3, 4, or 5.

Now, have a look at where you’re spending time on activities that rate 0, 1, or 2. These are the activities that are ripe for swapping out. Here is where you can give up just 15 minutes a day to meditate, instead.

If you spend a lot of time in low priority activities, you might wonder how that came to be. Perhaps you’ve allowed yourself to fall into a habit. Or, maybe you’re just going along with what others want you to do. Maybe you’re tired and just opt out of choosing what to do, instead resorting to something passive and unimportant to you. There are many reasons,