“I don’t have time.”

This is the most common excuse that people give for not starting a blog or investing time in social media. Here’s my response to that: There’s always enough time if you spend it properly.

You don’t have to quit your day-job. Invest in your project (your new blog) after hours. This is the kind of passion Gary Vaynerchuk talks about in his book. Skip watching tv. Don’t play any video games (or whatever other distracting activity). Instead of going to bed at 10 or 11pm, go to bed at 12am. You don’t need to pull an all-nighter or anything. What we’re looking for is just a few extra hours a week to write and engage via our social networks.

Give it two – three weeks. Heck, give it a whole month. Squeeze out an hour or two Monday through Friday in the early morning or late at night. Do that for a month and you’ll discover soon enough whether social media is a resourceful marketing avenue for you or just another fad (a passing phase). And if it is just a passing phase, well, it’s back to work as usual. You didn’t lose anything other than a couple of hours (no big deal).

The point is this… If and when you want something bad enough, you make the time. If you don’t want it bad enough, and most people don’t, you use time as an excuse. You need to stop making excuses.

A Word About “Perfect Timing”

There’s no such thing. To quote a favorite book of mine from 37 Signals:

You’re always too young or old or busy or broke or something else. If you constantly fret about timing things perfectly, they’ll never happen. – Jason Fried & David Heinemeier Hansson

So, what’s stopping you? Have you started a blog recently? Drop a link to it in the comments below…I’d be happy to take a look at it.