Why ‘I Don’t Have Time’ Is a Permission Problem, Not a Time Problem

Your brain manufactures crises when you try to help yourself

Photo by Toa Heftiba on Unsplash

I’m standing in my kitchen at 6:47 AM, coffee brewing, journal open on the counter where I placed it the night before.

Twenty minutes. That’s all I need.

But my hand reaches for my phone instead. Three texts. An email marked urgent. A notification about a package delivery. I tell myself I’ll write after I handle these quick things, and then I’ll have a clear mind for the script.

I handle them.

Then I wipe down the counter. Notice a spot on the backsplash. Clean it. Rearrange the fruit bowl so the bananas aren’t touching the apples. Refill the cat’s water even though the bowl is still half full.

By 7:15, I still haven’t written a single word of my future.

I’ve given 28 minutes to other people’s agendas and zero to my own. I’ve been teaching this protocol for six months. I have testimonials. I have clients who are transforming their lives with these 20-minute future scripts.

And I can’t give myself the time I’m asking them to take.

The Lie We Tell Ourselves

I’d like to tell you this was a one-time thing. An off morning. That usually I’m disciplined and consistent.

But I’d been avoiding my own protocol for days. Telling myself I didn’t have time. Reorganizing closets and answering emails that could wait and scrolling on Substack because “I need to check what’s working for other writers.”

And the really uncomfortable part? I had the time. Obviously, I had the time. I’d just spent 28 minutes proving I had the time.

But every time I looked at that open journal, something in my chest tightened. My brain flooded with reasons why now wasn’t the right moment. After I finish this. After I handle that. After I earn it.

That’s when it hit me.

Some part of me still believes my own future belongs at the bottom of a very long list.

What Your Brain Is Really Doing

When you say “I don’t have 20 minutes,” you’re not making a time statement. You’re making an identity statement.

You’re saying: I am someone whose needs come last.

Your brain resists those 20 minutes because you’re trying to change the rules about who gets to matter. Years of prioritizing everyone else’s agendas have trained your Reticular Activating System—your brain’s attention filter—to notice what matters. And you learned long ago that you don’t appear on that list.

So when you try to claim that time, your brain generates a crisis to prevent you from doing the one thing that actually threatens the status quo.

The email that sat in your inbox for two days must get answered right now. The closet that stayed messy for three months needs organizing immediately. The fruit bowl suddenly requires intervention.

This is survival logic, not time logic. And survival logic doesn’t care about your calendar. It cares about keeping you safe from what feels like risk—and claiming space for your transformation feels risky to a brain that believes you’re only valuable when you’re useful to others.

The rational part of your brain knows the math doesn’t add up. You scrolled social media for fifteen minutes yesterday. You spent twenty minutes explaining to someone why you’re so overwhelmed. You reorganized your desk twice this week.

The time exists. You’ve been spending it. Just not on yourself.

The Permission Trap

Here’s what I figured out standing in that kitchen at 7:15 AM with cold coffee and 28 wasted minutes:

You can’t wait until you feel like you have permission.

That’s the trap. You wait for internal authorization that will never arrive because your nervous system maintains the current hierarchy—and in that hierarchy, you’re last.

You don’t need better time management. You don’t need a more optimized morning routine. You need to understand that this is a permission problem disguised as a time problem.

And unlike time, permission is something you actually control.

The 90-Second Bypass

I lowered the bar until my brain couldn’t deny it.

I didn’t decide to write for 20 minutes. I decided to write for 90 seconds. That’s it. Ninety seconds was small enough that my brain couldn’t manufacture a crisis big enough to justify skipping it.

So I set a timer. Wrote one sentence. Then another.

Once I was in motion, the 90 seconds became five minutes. Then ten. Then the full 20. But I didn’t start there. I started by making permission automatic, not earned. Your brain can’t revoke what it never had the chance to debate.

I stopped waiting to feel ready. I chose a specific time : 6:47 AM, right after I pour my coffee and when that time arrived, I moved my body to the chair. No negotiation. No checking in with how I felt about it.

If I scheduled a meeting for a client, I wouldn’t cancel because I didn’t feel ready. The clock granted permission for those things. I just let it grant permission for this too.

Then I paired it with something that already has permission. I already gave myself permission to drink coffee in the morning. That permission was automatic, unquestioned, built into my day.

So I stacked the future script onto the coffee. “I write while the coffee brews.” The coffee grants permission. The writing happens during it. I’m not asking. I’m linking two behaviors, and one of them already has approval.

What Changed

My brain stopped fighting me.

Not immediately. It took about three weeks for my nervous system to realize I wasn’t negotiating anymore. That 6:47 AM was when writing happened, the same way 6:30 AM was when coffee happened.

The urgency stopped showing up. The manufactured crises quieted down. My brain expected that I would show up for myself.

The permission became automatic.

And once my brain stopped treating my 20 minutes as negotiable, I started noticing when I was about to give away time I’d claimed for something important. I started recognizing the manufactured urgency for what it was—my nervous system testing whether the old rules still applied.

They didn’t. I’d rewritten them. Twenty minutes at a time.

This Morning

I stood in my kitchen at 6:47 AM.

Coffee brewing. Journal open. Phone face-down on the counter.

My brain whispered its familiar protests. The email. The closet. The thing I forgot to do yesterday. All the reasons why 20 minutes was too much to ask right now.

I set the timer anyway.

Ninety seconds, I told myself. Just ninety seconds.

I wrote the first sentence of my future script. Then the second. My chest opened. My breathing changed. By the time the coffee finished brewing, I’d written for twelve minutes and my future felt more real than my inbox.

I’d finally stopped asking permission to claim my time.

The Real Question

The next time your brain whispers “I don’t have 20 minutes,” check the clock. Note the time. Then ask yourself: “Do I have permission?”

If the answer is anything other than an automatic yes, you’ve just identified the real problem.

And unlike time, permission is something you control completely.

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In my Future Scripting workshop this Saturday, January 10th, 2026 at 4:00 PM EST, we work through the exact moment when your brain tries to revoke permission. The friction points. The identity negotiations. The manufactured urgency that shows up right when you’re about to claim space for yourself. We practice what it feels like when you already have permission. Join us!

PS: Paid members join for free.

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Two more permission strategies that work:

Pre-decide the friction points. Your brain will try to revoke permission through logistics: “Where’s my journal? What should I write? Is this the right time?” Eliminate those decision points the night before. Put the journal open on the counter. Write the first sentence before bed. When 6:47 arrives, you’ve already built permission into the setup.

Borrow an identity that already has permission. When you sit down to write, you’re the architect of your future showing up to the blueprint session. That person doesn’t ask if they have time. They just show up at the scheduled hour. The work matters. They matter. Try that identity on. See what happens when you stop asking and start showing up.

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