Time seems to be a problem.

“I didn’t have time.”

“There’s not enough time.”

“I won’t have time.”

The refrains I hear again and again from entrepreneurs and business professionals.

But here’s the truth: You have the time.

In fact, you have all of the time there is.

You have all of the time that’s been promised to presidents, prime ministers, and kings.

No one has any more of it.

The heart of the problem isn’t a lack of time.

It’s how you end up using your time.

There’s an interesting exercise we do in our time management workshops. It goes like this:

Draw a line down the middle of a sheet of paper. On the left had side, write down the top 5 things your value most. On the right hand side, write down the 5 activities on which you spend the most time.

Look at your lists.

If you’re like most folks, the left hand list has things like family, spouse, partner, children, grandchildren, health, wellness, adventure, travel.

The right hand list has things like work, office, commuting, board meetings. Oh, and more work.

There’s nothing wrong with either list. Both are fine.

The problem is in the incongruity between the lists.

Anxiety, stress, overwhelm, sadness, depression, the sense that there isn’t enough time. These feeling arise as a result of not spending your time on what you say you value most.

Your mission should you choose to accept it: work on matching up your lists.

Because, the sands of time will run out.