avatarSandra Pawula

Summarize

How I Added More Time to My Life

Would you like to feel more spacious too?

Photo by KoolShooters on Pexels

Everyone wants more time, don’t they?

Almost all of us suffer from time pressure — the psychological stress that arises when we feel we don’t have enough time to complete our tasks, achieve our goals, or enjoy our lives.

We can’t literally add more time to our lives. We’re all given the exact same amount of time each day, week, month, and year. But we can create a life that feels like we have more time.

Because, what we’re really seeking when we wish for more time is the feeling of having more time, more space, and more room to breathe.

But how do we make that happen?

As a person who gets easily overwhelmed, I’ve struggled with time pressure for the better part of my life. I’ve found four solutions that have worked for me. Maybe they can help you too.

Subtraction

When my therapist went on vacation for three weeks, I suddenly had a free day. That day was no longer bisected by an hour-long appointment. I didn’t have to prepare for the session nor take time to decompress afterward — which made it more like a two-hour interjection.

When Friday rolled around, my usual appointment day, I felt a tremendous spaciousness. I loved the feeling of having more time and space.

After that luscious series of free Fridays, I dropped from four therapy sessions a month to two — a change I felt ready for and had previously discussed with my therapist.

In the past, I’ve also subtracted:

  • A weekly two-hour long gab fest that no longer brought me joy
  • Hosting a Facebook group that required daily posting
  • Sending a longer, multi-topic e-letter in favor of a simple heartfelt message

Occasional bouts of subtraction have consistently made more time for writing, relaxing, and cuddling with my cats. It’s made my life feel more spacious and my time feel open instead of compressed.

Action Step: Review your schedule to see what you could eliminate. What no longer brings you joy, clients, income, or another desired outcome? What no longer interests you?

“Besides the noble art of getting things done, there is the noble art of leaving things undone. The wisdom of life consists in the elimination of non-essentials.” ― Lin Yutang

Addition

It might sound like a contradiction, but one way to reduce the stress of time pressure is to add in more time.

Here’s an example from my life.

I meet up with my closest friends for a discussion group once a week. I have my preparation for departure timed to a fraction of a second.

I open my front gate while my egg cooks. I gather my bags, my computer, and my water bottle and place them on a chair near the front door. I grab my watch and phone and place them next to my bag.

I’m well prepared.

But every single week, I rushed out the door without a moment of wriggle room. I felt stressed and worried the whole drive whether I would arrive on time.

I dislike the sensation of a revved up body created by cutting it too close.

Eventually, I decided to start my preparations 15 minutes earlier. Now, I feel a sense of ease on my drive. If I arrive early, I stop and gaze at the ocean for a few moments, adding to my relaxation.

As counterintuitive as it might seem, sometimes the solution to time pressure comes from adding more time to a particular task or activity.

This is especially so because most people underestimate the amount of time it takes to complete a task. This is due to what researchers call “the planning fallacy.”

“The planning fallacy is a cognitive bias which was first identified by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in 1977. They found that we tend to systematically underestimate the time it will take to complete an action, and defined the planning fallacy as: ‘the tendency to underestimate the amount of time needed to complete a future task, due in part to the reliance on overly optimistic performance scenarios.’” — Anne-Laure Le Cunff

Action Step: Which specific activities make you feel time pressure? Add more time to those activities and see if if the stress lessens. Even small amounts of added time like 5 or 10 minutes can make a difference.

Efficiency

At least a zillion time management techniques, books, and apps exist to help you become more efficient.

A few I’ve used include:

  • Prioritization — select a limited number of goals each day; three is a popular number
  • Time blocks or day blocks for specific tasks
  • Batching similar tasks
  • Mapping out an ideal week template that allows space to breathe

Be careful with efficiency, however. Some techniques may save you time. But some techniques may make you feel more stressed.

For example, time blocks make me feel stressed. I feel the pressure of my time block literally ticking away and perhaps ending before I’ve reached a sense of completion.

We’re all different. Experiment and see what works for you.

Right now, I’ve become more efficient by streamlining my movements.

For example, when I prepare to go out for the day, after my shower, I dress in my bedroom, hang up my nightgown, make my bed, grab my watch from its charger, take my shoes from the closest, and take my purse from its spot next to the bed.

I only move into the kitchen or living room when all the bedroom tasks are done. I don’t make ten trips back and forth to the bedroom. I do all things bedroom while I’m in the bedroom.

It feels like a relaxing choreographed dance, which reduces the feeling of time pressure — at least for me.

Action Step: How can you be more efficient with your time and tasks? If you’re not familiar with time management, read a few articles, grab a good book on the topic, or listen to a productivity guru on YouTube. Then put a few of the principles you’ve learned into action.

Expansion

No, I don’t mean psychedelic drugs! I mean mindfulness.

The practice of mindfulness can help you enter what Buddhists call the “fourth time” or timelessness.

The fourth time is when you’re free of the past, the present, and the future. You can’t even hold onto the so-called present moment because it’s already passed before you can utter “now.”

Imagine what it would feel like to let go of regret-filled thoughts of the past, going off on whatever occurs in the present moment, and speculating about a future that may never occur.

Researchers say the average human has 6,200 thoughts per day. Thinking too much eats away at your time.

You would feel a lot less grief, wouldn’t you? And you could save a substantial amount of time.

Researchers say the average human has 6,200 thoughts per day. Thinking too much eats away at your time. Do you really want to spend that much time in your head?

Mindfulness won’t banish every single thought and leave you with an empty mind. But it will calm your thoughts and help whittle them down to the most relevant and necessary.

I’ve practiced mindfulness for decades and I’ve taught the practice to hundreds of others. I know from my own experience that mindfulness when practiced regularly, expands your sense of time and creates a spacious ambiance in your being.

“Everything actually has to be brought into the present moment. In Buddhist practice, bring everything, whatever it is, from all directions, into the present moment, then drop the present. Then time vanishes.” — Tsoknyi Rinpoche

Action Step: When you find your mind wandering into the past or future, bring it back to the present moment.

Concluding Thoughts

Time pressure, an all too pervasive disease of modern times, makes you feel like you never have enough time. That leads to stress, which can steer you into depletion.

But you can learn how to counteract time pressure. I’ve successfully used these four approaches to bring the feeling of more time and space into my life:

  1. Subtraction
  2. Addition
  3. Efficiency
  4. Expansion

Think you don’t have the time to stop and try? Then, this is exactly what you need! Reclaim your time. Don’t let the world steal it from you.

For more inspiration, sign up for my bi-monthly Wild Arisings e-letter and you’ll receive access to free self-discovery resources as well.

You might also like:

Life
Mindfulness
Life Lessons
Time Management
Self Improvement
Recommended from ReadMedium