How often do you feel like you just don’t have enough time? Despite trying every time management technique and productivity strategy in the book, do you find it impossible to shake the feeling that time is slipping away? This is called time anxiety.
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 is what we want most, but what we use worst.
William Penn
In our productivity-obsessed world, it’s common to feel overwhelmed with your schedule and workload from time to time.
But 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.
Unlike other aspects of our lives, time can never be controlled. So how can you move past the anxiety of time’s uncontrollable nature and learn to feel good about yourself and your work?
What is time anxiety? Why you can’t stop thinking about how little time you have
Time anxiety is the terrible feeling that you never have enough time and aren’t doing enough with the time you do have. But to understand why you feel this way, you first need to understand your relationship with time.
As children, time usually doesn’t mean much to us. Yes, we follow a bit of a schedule. But for the most part, we’re left to fill long, unstructured days with games and learning.
As we become teenagers, however, time starts to gain importance. We have school and sports and hobbies and friends to fill it. Not only that, but we’re often told that ‘wasting time’ now will ruin our future.
Then, suddenly, time becomes our most important and scarce resource. As adults, we have college, work, families, and all other sorts of serious responsibilities that demand our time and attention.
As we get older, time becomes something we not only have to consider but try to control.
But here’s the irony: the more we focus on the limited time we have, the more limiting our time feels.
The more we focus on the limited time we have, the more limiting our time feels.
In other words, the more you worry about time, the more time feels like something you need to worry about.
In this way, time anxiety is a lot like the Pink Rhinoceros problem.
If I ask you not to think about a pink rhino, it’s going to be the first thing that pops into your mind.
Psychologists call this ironic process theory–the process where the deliberate attempt to suppress certain thoughts makes them more likely to surface.
That’s why you can’t tell someone to just stop worrying about time. The more you try to stop time anxiety, the more you’re likely to worry about it.
The three types of time anxiety that impact your present, future, and overall happiness
Instead of ignoring time anxiety, you need to understand how it impacts your thoughts, behaviors, and even habits. That’s because time anxiety impacts our thinking beyond just feeling stressed over your daily schedule.
In fact, time anxiety shows itself in multiple ways. Here are a few examples:
- Daily time anxiety: This is the feeling of never having enough time in your day. You feel rushed. Stressed. Overwhelmed.
- Future time anxiety: These are the ‘What ifs?’ that ravage your brain. You feel paralyzed thinking through everything that may or may not happen in the future depending on your actions today.
- Existential time anxiety: This is the overall anxiety of only have a limited time to live your life. No matter how much you race ahead or push forward, there’s only one finish line.
Now more than ever we demand that we make our time meaningful. This translates into anxiety about how we spend our time today, but also about how those actions impact our future.
The common answer is to focus on what you’re doing right now.
Create a schedule that supports all your goals. Build better habits and remove distractions that waste your time. Get better at estimating projects. Prioritize important work so you feel accomplished at the end of the day.
And while all those strategies work to help you use your time better, they don’t address the underlying issue.
How to deal with time anxiety (once and for all)
Overcoming time anxiety comes down to awareness, understanding, and action.
In this sense, RescueTime was built to help people deal with time anxiety. We saw how our friends and colleagues constantly got to the end of the day and asked “Where did my time go?”
RescueTime observes how you spend time in apps, websites, and projects and gives you in-depth reports on your habits. It helps shine a light on where your time goes, which is a massive help in reducing time anxiety.
But can too much observation of where your time goes actually add to your time anxiety?
The short answer is yes. Obsessing over any aspect of your life will lead to anxiety and stress and time is no different.
However, being unaware of where your time is going is just as stressful and can be one of the causes of time anxiety in the first place.
Think of it like the dieter wanting to lose weight. Obsessing over every calorie and carb is stressful and unsustainable. But ignoring what you’re eating won’t bring the results you want. It’s all about finding a balance between awareness and action so you can continue living your life.
If you want to remove time anxiety and feel better about your days, here are a few strategies to try.
1. Acknowledge your relationship with time
It’s probably been a long time since you thought about what time means to you (if ever!)
But time anxiety builds when we ignore or try to manipulate the ways that time impacts our day. To start, you need to accept some truths about time:
- Time exists
- You can’t stop time from moving or slow it down
- All you have control over is what you do in the future
This might seem like a silly first step, but acknowledging time’s impact on your life is a powerful way to quell anxiety and start moving forward.
2. Ask what ‘time well spent’ means to you
Time anxiety comes from feeling like you’re not spending your time in the best way possible. But do you really know what the ‘best possible way’ is?
Start by asking yourself what does a good day look like?
At work, what sort of tasks get you into a state of flow?
Outside of work, what hobbies or activities do you enjoy in the moment? Not just because they help you ‘turn off’ your mind?
If it helps to spur ideas, list activities under the categories from Darius Foroux’s ‘Six Spoke’ theory:
- Body: What do you like to do to feel healthy and active?
- Mind: What pushes your mind in a good way?
- Love: Who do you love spending time with?
- Work: What work or tasks make you feel good?
- Money: How do you want to use the money you do have?
- Play: What hobbies or rest activities do you really enjoy?
3. Understand the planning fallacy (and why you have less time than you think!)
Listing out lots of activities can lead to more time anxiety if you’re not careful. Instead, the goal here is to be realistic about what you can do with the time you have.
Unfortunately, most of us are pretty bad at planning. We believe that 8 hours of work means we have 8 hours of time to schedule. However, study after study shows most people have at best 2.5 hours of truly productive time a day.
We believe that 8 hours of work means we have 8 hours of time to schedule. However, study after study shows most people have at best 2.5 hours of truly productive time a day.
We’ve written a full guide on the planning fallacy here. However, what it comes down to is that at work, most people spend:
- 15% of their time in meetings
- 25-30% of their computer time on email, chat, and video calls
- 40% of their time multitasking and working a sub-optimal way
And that doesn’t include time spent on breaks (which are a necessity!) or on non-work activities.
The same can probably be said for your time outside of work. You might have 5 hours between when you get home and when you go to bed, but are you considering things like dishes, shopping, cleaning up, etc…?
This isn’t meant to stress you out further but rather to help you understand that you do have limitations you have to work within. Time can’t be stretched to fill your to-do list.
4. Make space for the things that matter (and just do them!)
Time anxiety can feel paralyzing. But the worst thing you can do is sit back and wait for motivation to spend your time in a better way.
Instead, psychologists have found that motivation does not precede action, action precedes motivation.
In other words, to feel motivated and happy, you need to act.
Look at your time well-spent activities and decide how they will fit into your day. This doesn’t necessarily mean scheduling a specific time for them (although many people do this with great success).
Instead, think about how your most meaningful tasks will fit into a real day.
Will you do them in the morning before work? On your commute? After dinner when the kids are in bed? Make space for them and time will sort itself out.
When you come to terms with your limited supply of time, it’s easier to turn off the tv, log off Twitter, and do things that make you feel good.
Thinking through your day like this can also help you cut out the time-wasters and distractions that add to your time anxiety. When you come to terms with your limited supply of time and what truly matters, it’s easier to turn off the tv, log off Twitter, and do things that make you feel good.
5. Practice being a ‘Satisficer’ instead of a ‘Maximiser’
An often overlooked aspect of time anxiety is how we think about the future. Many of us stress out over making the best choice possible. But there is no ‘perfect’ decision.
Psychologists have identified two types of decision-makers:
- Maximizers strive to make a choice that will give them the maximum benefit later on.
- Satisficers make choices according to their set of current criteria and nothing more.
Trying to maximize your time today, tomorrow, and every day after will only lead to more time anxiety. Instead, look at your time well-spent activities and realistic schedule and decide what fits best now.
(If it helps, studies have found that maximizers actually often make worse choices and suffer stress and anxiety in the process.)
Time keeps on slipping. We’re just along for the ride.
We all want to spend our time in the best way possible. But stressing out over the seconds and minutes we have does us more harm than good.
As writer Maria Edgeworth wrote back in the 1800s:
“If we take care of the moments, the years will take care of themselves.”
Be realistic about your time, know what makes you feel accomplished and the rest will take care of itself.
Have you ever dealt with time anxiety? How did you overcome feeling like you never have enough time? Let us know in the comments below!
Wow. I enjoyed the article. Lots of good content. Can you (Jory) post some sources that support this statement? “… studies have found that maximizers actually often make worse choices and suffer stress and anxiety in the process.”
Thanks!
Hey Levi. For sure! That statement was taken from this post on Psychologist World.
Here’s the quote:
“Given that maximisers task themselves with making the most informed, intelligent decisions, we might expect that the outcome of their approach would be superior, more satisfying decisions. Yet, this assumption has been contradicted by numerous studies, which have found that maximisers are often less effective in a decision-making environment, and suffer under the pressure of high self-expectations.”
Started to feel like I didn’t have enough time to finish all my tasks, work as an entrepreneur, spend time with my love ones, show up in ministry, and work on building a relationship.
I started to feel restless, & desired to stay in the moments with my loved ones longer, even though I knew I had work to do.
Which just led to more work to do later.
Loved the fact that you pointed out even though we have 5 hours per day, that it’s actually not 5 hours.
That we do have limitations, and that’s OKAY, because so does everyone else.
I’m going to try to switch my mind to making the bet decisions “for now” with what I have now, instead of thinking of every little step in the future 🙏🏾
Thank you for this, such a powerful and practical read in 2023 😊👍🏾
As a junior in high school, time anxiety has been a major issue I have been dealing with. I remember spending the night before planning every single hour of my life with a big list of to-do’s and never being able to finish them, which always leads to me being anxious being unable to complete my daily goals. Even now, I have quite ambitious goals of self-studying for 4 APs and qualifying for math and science olympiads. I would try to minimze the time I spend in sleep, waking up at 5AM after sleeping at 11PM, so I can maximize my time.
As I learn through these experiences, I have realized that such “maximzer thinking” is not only unhealthy, but also leads to a paralysis of fear. In my case, I often procrasinate upon my goals because they are so huge and I then feel so guilty and miserable at the end of the day for wasting my time.
However, recently I have been reading “Deep Work” by Cal Newport and tried to implement its strategies of concentrated, distraction-free deep work. I only read the first 15 pages of the preface, but this idea has already been ingrained into me. I have found that by understanding the logic behind the reasons on why I should not be distracted by social media, I have naturally been able to complete concentrated hours of study. By understanding the reasoning, we can accomplish the meaningful tasks we wish to do: I have struggled with time management for nearly my entire life, yet after this simple read, I did not turn on Facebook or Youtube a single time and completed 3 hours of concentrated, distraction-free time.
As David Goggins said, “Your mind is the most powerful thing on the planet.” Indeed, it is truly impossible to try to fight and resist the natural processes of human biology: I have tried that for years and it hadn’t worked. Instead, we need to come to terms with them by understanding them through books, videos, or lectures and, therefore, be able to live a happier, more fulfilling life.
Hey Joshua. Thanks so much for sharing your story and I’m glad to hear you’re on the right path forward! Cal’s writing (especially Deep Work) has been hugely influential on all of us at RescueTime and it sounds like it’s helping you as well. Happy to have you here.
Interesting article. I love the fact that you talk about ‘Satisficing’ – so few people are aware of this as a word, let alone a concept.
Just to note, there’s no ‘U’ in Rhinoceros 😉
Thanks Alan! Not too sure how that one slipped past the spellchecker.
Very good article guys! I’m a long term RescueTime PRO user, but this article added more actionable information to make my relationship with time better.
The Satisficer vs Maximizer was a reality check! I tend to lean towards Maximizer, but sometimes (when I work too much and overdo it), I adopt the Satisficer approach – and that helps me recharge. Should know better to just stick with Satisficer long term :).
With regards to the planning fallacy – one thing that helped me a lot is visual planning (don’t just have a to do list, but have time blocks for each task in your calendar, including lunch break or dog walking). Then you’ll see why you always assume you can fit more into one day than the reality. Visual planning changes your relationship with time too – you’ll realize tasks usually take more time than you think and you’ll have a nice visual comparison of how much time you spend on earning money to live and actual living. More on that in my post about planning and productivity: https://sensimism.com/how-to-be-more-productive/
Thanks!
This is great! Thanks so much for sharing Lukas.
Your visual planning strategy sounds a lot like time blocking which we’re huge fans of. Would love to hear your take on this post: https://rescuetime.wpengine.com/time-blocking-101/
I think this will help me. Thanks 🙂
So glad to hear it! Best of luck!
Thanks for the article. I’ve had a fairly chaotic life (to say the least). I had 12 operations on my feet between the ages of 6 and 16, some of which made my feet worse and my pain worse. At 16 I was prescribed oxycodone – a drug that helped my physical pain, but also created a feeling of euphoria whereby all problems can simply be put off or ignored. I have lived in pain, often severe pain, for the majority of my life. Due to my poor upbringing by parents that were physically fighting, cheating on each other, etc, I found the oxycodone to be a brilliant way to destroy the mental health problems that had built up over the years. As you may’ve guessed, I became addicted. Due to other factors, I was also diagnosed with social anxiety disorder – the biggest contributor of which was my relatively severe stutter which still severely holds me back today. Because of all these issues, I feel like my peers have left me behind. A few years ago, I had bilateral below-knee amputations due to the dreadful pain (largely caused by the aforementioned surgery itself). The results were fantastic – no pain and I was able to jog and run for the first time since I was about 6 (I’m 34 now). I’ve always been told that I’m intelligent and that I’m capable of going very far, but I feel incredibly limited by my stutter and social anxiety. Despite all of these issues, I managed to finish high school with good grades (despite not being at school much of the time after developing psychosis at the age of 14). I went to college and eventually I quit due to the dreadful social anxiety. Classmates would throw paper at me because I was that ‘weirdo’ who couldn’t speak properly and who limped whenever he walked, etc. I wish I had not quit, but I did. I had quit because my mum suggested it, as she didn’t like to see me in pain (obviously), but that was a terrible decision. Since then, I feel like I’ve ‘wasted’ 1.5 decades and that now I’m in a position where I won’t have the time to reach my potential in life. People say it’s never too late, and I accept that, but I still feel the pressure of time pressing down on me no matter what I’m doing. Sometimes it’s so intense that I literally sit there and do nothing but think incessantly about how miserable the situation is. I’ve taught myself coding languages and I’m proud of doing that outside of formal education, but now I’m even wondering whether it’s the right career for me to pursue. Although I look forward to coding sometimes, there are also times when it fills me with dread. I think the latter is partly due to a feeling of having to learn as much as I can as quickly as I can in order to make up for that lost time I mentioned above. Obviously that’s not going to help the learning process. I spend so much of my time just sat here thinking about my mindset, my thoughts, feelings and emotions – what needs to change, what should change, how I can change them, etc. I am a huge overthinker and procrastinator. I feel almost paralysed – I want so much better for myself, but all I see are barriers. My social anxiety and stutter are particularly bad right now – so much so that even walking into a shop to ask for something is stressful. Avoidance has made my stutter even worse. Another consequence is that I isolate myself to avoid embarrassment and humiliation. I’m stuck, as you’ve probably gathered. 🙂
Hi,
I read your article and found it very interesting. Thanks for the write-up.
I didn’t even know this was a thing, and I think I’m going through it. Thanks for the amazing points. Really helped me.
I found this article on essential oil’s effects on mental health that might help.
https://yourmentalhealthpal.com/essential-oils-for-mental-health/
Wow. I didn’t realize what I was doing had a name until reading this. I’m definitely a maximizer. Hopefully with this knowledge I can find a way to change my way of doing things, though very difficult to break habits
Hi,
I have read your article and found it very interesting. Thanks for the write-up.
Hi,
I have read your article and found it very interesting. Thanks for the write-up.