What your F-ed Up Relationship With Time is Costing You

Did you see the 2017 Wonder Woman with Gal Gadot? My favorite moment in the entire movie is when she bewilderedly asks Chris Pine’s character to explain why he lets a little watch control his life. When he works, sleeps, wakes, eats, etc. 

This is emblematic of most people’s problem––our f-ed up relationship with “time”. You see, “time is a manmade construct,” as I told my dad during a recent father-daughter chat. 

Dad: You’re right. There is no time in nature. We created it. 

Me: And yet, every single person will tell you that the reason they don’t do what they want to do is that they don’t have enough time.

What Actually is Time Stress

You see, “time stress” is one of four types of stress identified by Karl Albrecht, a management consultant and author (among other credentials). Albrecht’s book Stress and the Manager (1986) helped pioneer occupational stress management.

Time stress is what it sounds like. You feel pressured by the sense that there is too little time to do what you need to do. Albrecht notes that this is particularly American, as our culture is “obsessed” with the concept of time and of time as a commodity. Some languages do not even have a word for time. Because they recognize that time is abstract. Whereas the English language and the American culture has defined time as if it exists sure as the sun and moon. 

Now, to be fair, humans do need a sense of structure. It is believed that without such routine or structure man would experience existential anxiety. So the sense of time or at least routine to structure the days and ground us has a place. But we need to find a middle ground. 

Why? I mean, do you really need me to answer that? If so, here it is. Aren’t you tired of feeling miserable? Tired of feeling stressed out, overwhelmed, like someone or something else is running your life? Like you don’t have time to do anything you really want to do, or that you’re always in the wrong place or never doing a good enough job? 

That’s why. Those thoughts will not only ruin your happiness and make your life miserable, but they will shorten it. They will negatively impact your physical health as much as your mental health. This is what your f-ed up relationship with time is costing you.

Minimizing Time Stress

So, how do you improve your relationship with time so that when the pressure starts to build you can breathe and realize that  no matter what happens, you can handle it? That time is invented. That you can manage the concept of time to make more of it. That you can invest in yourself in ways that give you more energy capacity so that you can make the most use of the time you feel like you do have?

Here’s how to un-F your relationship with time. 

First:

start repeating this affirmation to yourself daily, and anytime you are feeling pressured: “Actually, I have time.” 

I started telling myself this several years ago, long before I ever read Albrecht’s’ work. I discovered intuitively that it helped me reframe my relationship with “time”. Am I always perfect at it? No. You won’t be either, because we are human. But it will help. And the more you do it, the quicker you will be to return to this outlook rather than your former, stressed out self.

Second:

do a time audit. Look at how you are spending your time. And ask yourself which activities give you energy and which deplete it. What’s missing? Are there people or activities that aren’t even on your calendar because you feel like you don’t have time?

Third:

make changes. What adjustments can you make to reappropriate your time to other things? You may not be able to change some energy zappers right now, and that’s ok. Make changes where you can. To do this, you can see what chores you can outsource. Laundry, grocery shopping, cleaning? Can you hire a virtual assistant for some tasks? Can you arrange a carpool? What about multi-tasking? You can multi-task some things. Like doing laundry while on some conference calls or talking to a friend on the phone. Where can you stack those activities? 

Fourth:

Plan better. Plan your day the night before. Better yet, establish rituals for your mornings and evenings. You can even establish weekly rituals. For example, Sunday might be your Pore cleansing face mask day. Monday’s might be your gal pal walking group day on the sidelines of your kid’s sports practice. Thursday might be the day you do laundry during your virtual conference call (see number 3). 

You can also plan better by blocking off certain time periods or days on your calendar. Designate periods or days of the week for “personal admin” time and time for self investment (aka self-care). This self-investment time will give you what Albrecht called “slack time”. It’s a buffering period where you can relieve the stress that has been building up in relation to demands on your time. 

Self-investment time is critical to your longevity. And time management skills overall are critical. As is the ability to say no to things you do not feel you have time to do or do not want to do. 

Fifth:

Finally, try paying less attention to time and more attention to accomplishment. Albrecht argued that settling on what you can accomplish within the time you feel you have will go a long way toward improving your happiness by decreasing your sense of time stress. 

These are just a few approaches you can take to reframing your relationship with time. Remember, time is malleable. It’s what we make of it. After all, we made it. 

There is only one success - to be able to spend your life in your own way. ~Christopher Morley

Reference

Albrecht, K. (1986). Stress and the Manager. Simon and Schuster.