You know those business ideas everyone has but no one executes on? Back in the day, my husband and I came up with a doozy. Given how astonishingly busy most people are, we figured everyone struggles to find the time to do everything they need and want to. So we thought: wouldn’t it be cool if we could “make” time?

Here was the concept. We would set up a website where people could “buy” time in 15 minute increments. Say someone wanted an extra hour in the day. They’d just pay a small fee and we would send them a certificate that “gave” them an hour. Our rationale was that if they spent money on it, they may actually decide to treat the certificate seriously, and set aside that coveted hour. Or, y’know, it could be a gag gift.

You can see why we never commercialized this.

Despite the silliness of the idea, it raised a valid question. How do we carve out space in our too busy lives to both meet all our obligations and accomplish all our goals?

Time keeps on ticking

There’s obviously a logistical component to this. Whether we like to admit it or not, there are a finite number of hours in the day—and not all of them are going to be productive. But we all know stories of people who work full-time jobs, raise their kids, manage their households, spend time with friends, and still find time to write a book, or learn piano, or study another language. If we’re all given the same number of hours in the day (and we are, folks), how is it that some people can rock out the productivity and others not so much?

I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this. To be sure, some of it comes down to passion. If there’s something we’re really committed to accomplishing, we somehow find the time. The same is true for our priorities. Even if we can’t do it consistently, we generally make time for the things that matter most to us, whatever those may be: family, career-building, exercise, travel, reading, creating, making  music, or even just watching TV.

There’s no judgment here. We all get to choose how to spend our time. But if you’ve got that niggling voice in your head whispering (or perhaps shouting) that there’s something you aren’t doing, something your heart desires, something you want to do or build or create—and yet you still haven’t set aside the time—pay attention to how you are spending time. I mean that literally. Track how you spend each hour of the day for a full week. How much time do you spend preparing food and eating, sleeping, cleaning, on personal grooming? How much time do you spend commuting, working, at meetings? How much time do you devote to leisure activities?

What matters most?

Once the week is done, tally it up and allocate percentages. Say, 10% of your time sleeping, 70% of your time at work or on work-related matters, 10% on leisure, 10% on managing your household. And then decide if those percentages make sense. To be fair, you need to recognize that something has to give. If you’re trying to fit something new inside your existing schedule, you’re going to have to rearrange your existing schedule (unless you figure out how to add another few hours to the day, in which case your business idea wins). This means perhaps giving up an hour of sleep. Perhaps cleaning your house a bit less often. Watching less television. Flipping through fewer magazines. Even rearranging your work schedule, if that’s possible for you.

Remember, this comes down to passion and priorities. If you’re not truly committed to your idea, you probably won’t be willing to rearrange your schedule. If that’s true, it may be time to question whether you really want to accomplish whatever it is you’re dreaming of, or if it really is just a dream. Again, no judgment. Sometimes we aren’t willing to make the effort we need to achieve a new milestone. That’s cool.

But if you do have the passion and will, this little exercise may help you discover how to find the time you didn’t think you had. Even if it’s only an extra half-hour a day. You’d be amazed at what you can accomplish in tiny increments over time.

I suspect some of this comes down to attitude. So often, our actions are influenced by the way we think. So what would happen if we changed the way we think about time? A musician I love put it this way. He said, “Time is such a wonderful gift. You’re not running out, you’re really running in.”

Imagine that. We’re not running out of time. We’re running into it, by deciding to embrace each experience as it arises. By remaining flexible enough to accommodate unexpected change. By committing to our priorities, and recommitting to new priorities when the old ones no longer serve us. If you get your mind around this, you may realize that it is, in fact, possible to make time. We just need to decide.