Hey Reader,

"I don't have time" is the sentence that kills more side projects than any technical problem ever will.

I want to push back on it.

Not because it's a lie exactly, but because it's usually measuring the wrong thing.

Here's what actually happened when I built the World Cup app.

I didn't find extra hours.

I didn't work weekends I'd normally have off.

I traded time I was already spending on something else.

An hour of scrolling after dinner became an hour of building.

A Sunday afternoon that would have gone to nothing in particular became a Sunday afternoon with something to show for it.

The hours were already there. They just weren't allocated to anything I'd choose if I actually thought about it.

This is the part PMs get wrong about their own lives that they'd never get wrong on a project. If a team member told you "there's no capacity," your first move wouldn't be to accept it. You'd audit the plan and check:

• Where is the time actually going?
• What's mandatory?
• What’s priority?

Many PM’s don’t do that audit on their own week.

Try it properly, once, before you decide you don't have time.

Write down yesterday, hour by hour, as honestly as you can.

Not what you meant to do. What you actually did.

Most people find two things:

First - more dead time than they expected, scrolling, half-watching something, low-effort hours that felt necessary but weren't.

Second, real commitments they need to plan around instead of pretending they don't exist.

Neither outcome is bad news. Both are just better information than "I don't have time," which is really an untested assumption.

The aim isn't to fill every gap (rest matters and I'm not selling hustle).

The point is that the choice is more available to you than the story you've been telling yourself.

Somewhere in your week is more room than you've given yourself credit for.

Find it before you decide it isn't there.

See you next week.

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