I recently spoke to a couple of people who told me they were struggling to find the time to work on their marketing.

To be honest, over the years I've ended up with a bit of a bee in my bonnet about “finding the time” for marketing.

You see, I don't believe time is the issue. There is always time for things we prioritise.

Most people who log their time over a week are staggered at how much of it they spend watching TV, or doing pseudo-work like chatting in Linkedin or Facebook groups, surfing the web or going to low-value networking events.

You can never remove those low-value activities entirely of course. And life would be very dull if you never had any leisure time or had to work flat out all the time.

But if we're honest, all of us can find an extra few hours a week.

So rather than saying “I couldn't find the time to work on my marketing” I think it's much more positive to be truthful and say “it wasn't a big enough priority for me”.

Saying you couldn't find the time makes it seem like it was out of your hands and there was nothing you could do about it. That events conspired against you.

Saying it wasn't a big enough priority for you puts the solution in your own hands: make it a bigger priority and do something about it.

I'd advise taking the route that puts the solution in your hands. Take responsibility and take action.