Hang on - do we (actually) have enough time? When a sense of urgency isn’t helping us!

I listened to the most interesting podcast the other day about time and more specifically - how our perception of time is directly impacting our experience of time and, therefore, what we actually do with that time.

The dialogue on Hidden Brain was based on psychologist Cassie Mogilner Holmer’s recent research on the psychology of time, which she explores in depth in her book Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most. She explained how we’ve fallen victim to the illusion of time scarcity, and gave an example that

“If you think you’re busy, you’re experiencing yourself as more busy than you actually are.”

Now, this makes a lot of sense, but by explaining the phenomenon in detail, I began to reflect deeper on how much this shows up in my life.

I listened to the episode in the car on my way to an appointment and when I paused it before stepping into the building, I didn’t know how much this conversation had already changed me. It wasn’t until afterward, back in my car and quite surprised by what had just happened, that I understood the true meaning of what she was saying.

Time

My life is quite busy, as I’m sure yours is too. I’m a full-time mom (which comes with its own challenges) but fully determined to keep my business and climate optimist work going. So I work when she’s sleeping, which is early morning, during her midday nap, and if I’m lucky enough to have the energy for it — a little bit at night too.

Between all that, we are putting together our new home, doing our best to embrace the best of summer, seeing family, and catching up with friends. I feel justified in considering myself a busy gal and have gotten pretty good at time management.

Therefore, when I anticipated a (short) waiting time before my appointment, I thought it smart to kill that time by reading my book. It felt like “a good use of my time.”

However, having primed myself (very much unknowingly) by listening to that podcast, I ignored the book in my bag and instead gave my full self to engage in a conversation with the receptionist. The pre-podcast me would’ve been slightly annoyed (I need to read this book) but what surprised me so much was how important talking to her felt. Although we talked about nothing important at all!

Yet, it was a lovely conversation and I felt a much-needed and very fulfilling bond between this stranger and myself. I understood looking back that in terms of my happiness and well-being, that connection with another human was much more important than two minutes of reading ever could’ve been.

And what did this do to my perception of time?

I was (subconsciously) telling myself that I had the time to interact with another human being and, like magic, my time appeared to slow down.

I approached the rest of the day with a new mindset and was amazed at how much I actually got done. I didn’t magically carve out more time, I simply embraced and existed in the time I was given. I didn’t stress because I inherently didn’t believe I had to, and my whole day flipped on a dime.

How much do we stress because we think we have to?

I can’t help but wonder how much we’re ruining our chances of a present, mindful, and happy life - simply because we don’t know how to properly think about time. We are trained like soldiers to believe that “busy” means “good and productive” yet the very act of thinking that way actually makes us less productive, simply because we’re more stressed.

And I’m not just saying this - there’s proof.

Evidence shows that people talk significantly faster now than they did in the 1950s, and in just twenty years, people have started to walk 10 percent faster in cities, according to Guy Claxton, a cognitive scientist at the University of Winchester. This, he says, is a problem because:

“If we move too fast, we overload our abilities, and they degrade.”

— those abilities being focus, problem-solving, reflection, creativity, and even joy!

Because here’s the deal, our brains have not caught up with the evolution of the world around us. It still acts at a much slower pace and we are fools for thinking we can get more things done if we speed up and chase.

No matter how hard mindfulness can seem to achieve, there are real benefits to understanding its practices - both for your well-being and for the work of a climate-just world. When we stress, focus degrades, and our ability to reflect and come up with new innovative ideas is weakened. Mistakes occur more often and we spend more time correcting errors, which leads to frustration and - you guessed it - even more stress.

Time to tone down the urgency?

I have a chapter in my book about the need to town down the urgency on climate change and however provocative, there is real meaning to what I want to say. Because even though we must of course speed up our efforts and do all we can to reach a net-zero economy and world as soon as possible, our approach needs to find a much slower pace.

“We are in such a critical situation right now that we don’t have time to rush into the next thing. We must begin by slowing down so we can move with intention and clarity toward a world that is not just different, but better. If we don’t slow down first, how will we know if our actions will lead to better outcomes or continue to fuel new problems down the line?”

** This topic excites me so much and I will take a moment here to plug that my in-depth climate optimist course - where we will explore this and much, much more - is launching this October. Stay tuned for early bird tickets!

How about you?

How much are you potentially missing out because you don’t think you have enough time? Is your presence and mindfulness being hijacked by your own thoughts and perceptions?

Would love to learn in the comments!