There is just no time. I could do it, but where is the time? I wish I had more time. I’m running against time. These are the most repeated statements made by people. Men complain that they have no time for family due to long working hours. Women complain that they have no time for themselves due to 24/7 family commitments.
Working moms get exhausted trying to multitask. Time for relaxation, time for personal development, time for fitness, time for social interaction is always scarce and rare. Rush, hurry, push are the majority states people are in.
This of course is a classic recipe for missing out on the essentials: the essential of stopping and breathing, the essential for reflecting and organizing life’s clutter, the essential for taking stock of your own mental health and physical fitness, and the essential for updating yourself to keep up with a fast changing world.
The speedometer of life is ever being pushed to higher levels. More things need to be done and done at the speed of light. The reports that used to have a week to prepare are now expected to be ready overnight.
The tasks that were to be completed in a couple of days are needed in a couple of hours. With such piling of work and expectations, time seems to have become a big ask. This is perhaps the most top speed world we are in. True, but is this something new? Yes and no. Yes because with all the technological advances the speeds have become tougher.
No, because if you look at people working in different eras, you will find them struggling with finding time at their own will. That brings us to the conclusion that time is and will remain more of a state of mind, a state of management rather than just a world operating on the fastest forward mode. Four important elements to learn about time to change your time paradigm are:
Cribbers vs doers- How is that the busiest people have time for nearly everything? How is that those who have little to do are mostly short of time? I have had people working in the public sector who turn up in the office at 11am and leave by 4pm complaining about not having time for their health or skill development. This just shows that time is a frame of mind. This just proves that not having time may be the best cover-up for not being able to get up early, do a free online course rather than scroll mindlessly on Instagram, etc. There is no doubt that time is a scarce commodity and it is running out. That does not excuse us for not spending it more effectively. The safest way of coming out of an under-prepared task, a job not done, a responsibility not fulfilled is to blame it on time. The first and foremost task to become good time manager is to face the truth about yourself. Are you willing to accept that ‘I am too lazy or lax and thus always behind my schedules’? Acceptance of this is the start of course correction. This self-acceptance and self-confession is the first reality self-check.
Do a time scan- Once you have the integrity of accepting this responsibility that ‘I do have time but I choose to spend it on activities that are easy or pleasurable’, then do an activity time scan. As a coach when I ask people what are their top three priorities. Inevitably, the answer includes health. My next question is how much time are you spending on it? The answer is ‘I don’t have time’. That is when I ask them to do an honest time scan. For example, going for half an hour walk 3 times a week. They complain about how their hours are long in the office and by the time they come back, how tired they are. Fine. What about the morning? The answer is ‘we get up at 7am’. My question is can you get up by 6am 3 times a week? They look sheepish and reply, ‘it is hard’. Well, back aches are hard, heart attacks are hard. Choice is between getting up early, back problems and heart attacks. Which is the hardest? The problem is not that they do not have time, the problem is that they do not have that mindset of giving up one hour of sleep for a life that may be more fitter, more energetic and more productive.
Diagnose and delete time wasters- So let us assume that we do a scan and we find out that we are spending at least 2 hours on videos and reels of social media per day. That is where a professional needs to have an internal delete button. Reduce it to one hour. That one hour can be utilized in either some learning course online or doing preparatory research for some professional knowledge that you need to sharpen in your job. Another scan that you need to do is to see which work that you are doing can be either delegated to somebody else or sped up through Chat GPT tools. This time release can then be used to coach your team, have more time for social interactions with other important colleagues, etc.
Plan in advance yearly and weekly- When you plan ahead and schedule it, it mostly gets done. A common complaint that people have is that they have not had a relaxing break. The best way to do it to block your time well in advance. In my coaching assignments one of the super busy executives complained about not being able to take time off. We sat in the beginning of the year and identified three times in the year where there were some long weekends that coincided with his children’s time off and where he could take a couple of days off extra to go on some vacation. He blocked it on his calendar, worked towards it and for the first time in his professional career went for three short but great vacations. Similarly, plan your personal things before the start of the week. Walks, family outings, meeting up with friends should be put in selected days before the start of that week. Write them down on your meeting schedule and let the pop ups remind you again and again. The chances are that most of it will happen.
Time is a choice. Time is a decision. Time is a mindset. You have to decide where you want to spend it. Like all other limited resources you will have to decide and have the will power to stick to it. The choice is between one hour of sleep and one hour of exercise. The choice is between less of reel watching and more of professional learning. Between these choices lies your fate of being down and out or being up and about.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
The writer is a columnist, consultant, coach, and an analyst and can be reached at andleeb.abbas1@gmail.com