How often do you feel like you just don’t have enough time?
Despite trying every time management technique and productivity strategy, do you find it impossible to shake the feeling that time is always slipping away? This is called Time Anxiety.
In his essay "How to deal with the feeling that you ‘never having enough time", Jory McKay at RescueTime talks about Time Anxiety being similar to productivity shame–the feeling that you’ve never done enough–time anxiety is when you feel you never have enough time to meet your goals or that you’re not maximizing the time you do have.
Time anxiety is more than just a momentary spike in your workday stress. It’s an emotional specter that haunts your days, causes you to procrastinate on important tasks, and can even lead to burnout.
Be honest with yourself about how you spent your time.
If you look at your calendar right now, scanning back over how you spent your week last week, what percentage of your time was wasted doing inconsequential tasks that left you with Productivity Shame? If your time audit (and your sent folder audit) turns up a bunch of crap that could be discarded… you know what to do.
Most importantly:
Don’t beat yourself up. No Takes practice.
Immediate Recommended Reading:
Oliver Burkeman
Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
This one offers a thoughtful exploration of how to make the most of our limited time on Earth. Burkeman's insights on productivity and life priorities are both practical and profound. I wrote more about it here.
+ I really recommend subscribing to his excellent newsletter “The Imperfectionist” which has some really useful and insightful notes on time perception and ‘getting the right things done’.
Baby steps. NO takes practice. Start small, and work your way up.
Good luck,
- Jason