(inspired by my original blog)
As I listened to a recent coachee talking about how busy he was and how badly he was sleeping, I started thinking about how we all relate to time differently. You know that saying, if you want something done then give it to a busy person? Some people just seem to be adept at how to make more time for themselves.
In contrast, some people seem to carry the world on their shoulders such that they barely have time to even to eat properly. And some years ago, that was me also.
Of course everyone has a cracking point but what’s the difference? Is it really that busy people are more effective or is something else going on? What does time actually mean for us as individuals and can we somehow make more time for ourselves?
The Concept of Time
One of my favourite examples is when M. Scott Peck talks about his struggles with time as a young clinical doctor in his book The Road Less Travelled. Don’t quote me on the details but essentially, he asks for his supervisor’s advice for how to make more time because he was always doing long days and never got home on time.
Rather succinctly, his supervisor tells him that he has a problem with his relationship with time and sends him off.
In other words, it isn’t time that is the problem but it’s how we approach it. Peck had taken it upon himself to see his patients twice a week whereas everyone else was seeing theirs once a week. Almost subconsciously, Peck had prioritised his patients over his home-time but rather than reflect on his actions and motivations, he had blamed time and wanted to fix time.
We can’t control time. In fact, time is a concept that we have created to give us the illusion of control over change.
The Conditioning of Time
In many ways, we are conditioned by time because we construct our personalities and realities over time. How many of you describe yourself as punctual or “always running late”? What about describing yourself as someone who multitasks, despite that being proven as being physically impossible? Or those who like to say that they’re planners or last minute people?
Gone are the days when we simply flowed with the movement of the sun and the changing seasons. Instead, we are locked into seconds, minutes and hours.
Moreover, the mind constantly feeds our time-connected narrative such that we become attached to a permanent self and world around us. For Peck, he was caught up in the narrative of being a better doctor because he saw his patients more often than the others but was that the only data point to drive quality?
In Eastern psychology, the theory is that we can let go of that attachment and become no longer conditioned by time because we fully embrace the flow of change that we call time. We essentially transcend time because we enter the flow of life and become change itself. The idea is that we can also finally transcend our past and the conditioning that comes with it. Of course, we need to test this for ourselves so what would that look like in our day-to-day struggles?
How can we let go of the conditioning of time?
- Note your narrative – how are you relating to time and what does this say about who you believe to be? Most importantly, how is this narrative serving you and is it aligned to your deeper values? If you are resenting your lack of time, there’s most probably a disconnect.
- Pay attention to your subconscious drivers – the mind is a powerful con artist that tells us what we want to hear and believe but this doesn’t always match up with what we actually do and say. Just like Peck, he said he wanted to be home early but deep down, he really wanted to be the best doctor first. There is no right or wrong but simply make sure your story is aligned to your drivers.
- Listen to your inner critic – our inner voices can spend a huge amount of time berating us for how we handle time. Unfortunately, the emotions-logic body-mind that we have doesn’t respond well to the stick. Instead, try to befriend your inner critic and remind that voice that it’s ok to prioritise x over y whilst also reminding yourself that you are human and none of us can do everything.
time – in tune and deathless = beyond dimensions of time and space
What Else Can You Do to Feel More at Ease with the Flow of Change we call Time?
1- Purpose
Remember those moments when time flies? Can you remember what you were doing during those moments? The more we can do things that we enjoy or that matter to us then the more we’ll make more time, so to speak. Yes, time flies during those moments but paradoxically, we can also usually achieve more hence giving us the sense that we make more time for ourselves.
Find Your Flow … and your Ikagai… and Make More Time
In psychology, we talk about flow, coined by psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Essentially, you’re in the flow when you’re using your skills and learning whilst doing something that matters to you.
This is very closely related to purpose and finding your Ikagai. This Japanese word translates as ‘a reason for being’. It’s also the name of a great tool to work through to help you find that reason for yourself. Naturally, our purpose can change as we grow and evolve. Essentially, though, if you can match your skills to doing something that you feel makes a difference then you’re more likely to feel fulfilled.
Most importantly, your relationship with time will shift and you feel in your core that you have more of it.
Start with Reconnecting to your Passions as a Child
A good starting point to finding your purpose is to list all the things you used to enjoy doing as a child and let yourself be as wild and creative as you want. How can you then prioritise these into 2 or 3 things?
Can these then translate to something that you could be paid for? For example, mine were always writing and animals. I therefore now volunteer at an animal shelter clinic and I’m both a coach and a writer. I learnt that I needed to help people as well as animals.
2- Meet your Demons – what’s holding you back to Make More Time?
Thinking back to my overworked coachee and thinking of those people who seem to have their days under control, there seems to be a big difference in mindset. It turns out that my overworked coachee was attached to work, control and perfectionism. I should know, I was the same not too long ago.
Letting go of control so that you don’t have to do everything and realising that sometimes ‘good’ is more than enough, makes a huge difference in how we tackle our to-do lists and how relate to time.
Find your Limiting Beliefs
Defining my limiting beliefs all those years ago allowed me to rebalance my life and not feel guilty about focusing on myself and my values. I realised how much I was living someone else’s life and taking on responsibility that wasn’t mine to take. As you can imagine, this took a toll on how I related to time.
We all have a choice in how we run our lives and sometimes this choice can suddenly appear as a crisis or even a sickness. We can choose to keep blindly following someone else’s footsteps and values or we can choose to grow up. Jung called it individuation and James Hollis does a wonderful overview of that process in his book the Middle Passage.
At some point, we let go of the hero persona and adopt our true self but of course, the road is tough and often means working with a coach. After all, we need guidance to untangle all our conditioned blind spots that fix our personalities and beliefs in time. Another powerful approach for self-coaching is to journal to process our beliefs and the emotions that subconsciously drive us helter skelter into time.
Some great journal prompts include:
- 1- What did I do today that someone else could have helped with or done instead?
- 2- Of all the tasks I did today, which ones gave me joy and which ones drained me?
- 3- When I got frustrated today, what was my self-critic telling me? How can I rephrase it?
- 4- If I believed I could do anything, what would I do differently?
- 5- Did I make any mistakes today and how did they make me feel?
- 6- If a friend had made those ‘mistakes’, what would I say to my friend?
Of course it’s hard but with patience and practice, you can change your limiting beliefs and then focus on what you want. Time is a joy when you’re working on things you want to do. Everything is also so much easier and more efficient when you’re doing things that you’re good at. It essentially feels like you make more time for yourself.
Naturally, we still have things we need to do that drain us of energy. Perhaps it’s people or emails that you need to deal with but don’t really want to. You can still schedule them into your day so that you face them once and then it’s done. A little trick is to also make sure you do something fulfilling just before and afterwards.
3- Know your Flow and Prioritise Yourself
I was reading a time management blog about getting organised to help make more time for yourself. Clearly that’s good advice and works for many people. However, if you’re anything like me then the thought of being too organised just feels stifling. Doing a small batch of laundry every day sounds very tedious whereas I like to just do it all in one go every few weeks. I just make sure I have enough clothes to last a while.
Another one you often hear is to get your work clothes ready in the evening but that just bores me to tears. My evenings are for myself. I prefer the option of having similar work clothes so that the decision is easily made as part of my morning routine. I know Barack Obama is known for this but I was doing it long before and I think it comes from my years of wearing a uniform at school. That might not work for you of course and I know many people who like to be creative with their work clothes. Whatever it is though, experiment and find your rhythm.
Know Your Individual Energy Flow to Make More Time
The more we know our energy flow and what activities work for us at which points of the day then the more we’ll be in sync with our bodies. Trying to force us all into the same routine is actually counter-productive. We’re all different and we should honour that individuality.
We’ll then be able to be more ourselves, focus on things that matter to us and actually make a difference the way we want to. We’ll end up being more fulfilled and more able to make an impact that counts. Efficiency then naturally follows and suddenly we seem to have more time on our hands and, what’s more, we’ll have more joy in our lives.
Perhaps the greatest challenge for all of us is to let go of the conditioning of time and simply live in the present. To be beyond time and space and in tune with the natural flow of the universe is something that I’m still working on but every day brings little snippets of those moments which keep me going. Or as a much wiser person once said, “I go to the beat of the deathless drum” although in my case, I’m still connecting to that beat but I can hear it and it’s wonderful.