Do you really have time?

Part one in a series

Have you noticed a tendency to see your time as a resource — often a scarce one? It’s so prevalent as a way of thinking that we take it as a universal truth.

Notice the language:

“My time is precious.”

“I can save time by doing this…”

“This is taking too much of my time.”

“I have invested a lot of time in this relationship.”

“I don’t have enough time.”

All of that language has you see time as an object you hold that can be squandered or stolen. If you slow down, you can see that this way of thinking produces a lot of anxiety.

If time is a resource, and a precious one at that, then it can be taken from you. Executives often “protect” their time. As one client put it, his colleague’s assistant “ferociously guards his calendar” — and an image of a snarling dog comes to mind. What’s the effect of that guardedness on the guard? Or on the people who approach the gate?

Because time-the-resource can also be wasted, you would need to worry about using it efficiently. This is a path of thinking that can make management a frantic rush to beat the clock. When you have that mindset, how does it work for you? What does that mindset do to your experience of life and the people around you? How does it work with a spouse who comes to you in crisis (ever had the thought, “uh oh, how do I solve this quickly?”). How does a mindset of efficiency affect your experience of your kids?

Seeing time as a resource this way is a habit of mind, not reality.

If time were really a resource, you could store it. You could save it in a bottle. You could, like money, put it in the bank. But which bank can you put your time into? How do you get it back? (And wouldn’t it be great if you could get it back with interest?!)

Another way to understand time is that it is really about your relationship to life — it’s an expression of how you are. Time “flies” because you are in love with someone. Time “drags on” because you are bored in a meeting. The ticking of the clock is the same in both cases, but your experience — how you are — is quite different. Isn’t it interesting that if you are wholeheartedly engaged in life, loving what you are doing — in flow, or “in the zone” — that you lose all sense of time?

When you next notice the language of time-as-resource, consider asking yourself what is going on in your mind. Since time is a relative experience, if you slow down you will notice that something you are thinking and feeling is causing your experience, not the amount of time you have. In our work we know what’s possible when you examine the habitual patterns of thinking that compromise your experience of time and affect your quality of life. And when you do that, you can be more present, less preoccupied, savoring every moment. Imagine looking at each day as an opportunity to live life fully, rather than a timeframe to “get through”. Imagine never feeling your time is wasted, again.

This is not an argument against organizing your work and your schedule, nor a case for fanciful reframing. Far from it — the more you see time as an expression of who you are and how you want to lead your life, the more you can organize your schedule to express the life you want to lead.

We have so much more to say about time (hence the “part 1” in the title). For now, as a parting thought, consider using a phrase like “I will make time for that” to encourage the thinking that you’re the author of the way you live life and the maker of your experience of time.

To making time for life,

Tom and Team