In Search of a Better Time

Dr Helen Street, 2021

Since the pandemic took hold at the start of 2020, we have all lived with greater uncertainty, more disruption and a loss of our sense of normality. It is certainly not for me to rate one person’s experiences against another’s, however, the enormous impact of CV19 for most educators is undeniable. School leaders and teachers around the world have been repeatedly required to deal with significant extra stresses, challenges and changes on a daily basis. It is suggested that, as a whole, educator stress and overwhelm was noticeably elevated in 2020 (e.g. Rebecca J. Collie, 2021; Anna Dabrowski, 2020).

In this article, I would like to highlight the relationship between chronic stress and our ‘time mastery’. I believe if we can find better ways to master our experience of time, we can better support our resilience and wellbeing during the pandemic and beyond.

Rushing to Get Life Out of the Way

Stress and overwhelm go hand in hand with an unhealthy distortion of time. On the one hand, when we are stressed, a single day can feel like a continuous everlasting, agonizing moment. It is easy to ask ourselves ‘will this hour ever end?’ ‘When will this endless stress be over…?’

Yet, simultaneously, the constant rush of trying to get things done, get ahead and feel less overwhelmed  can feel like time has never moved faster.  It can seem as if ‘there is never enough time’ to get the important things done, to feel ‘in control’ and to be consistently competent. Life overload creates a disconnect between our perceptions of time and our perceptions of our need for time. We feel we are careering forward far too quickly, as much as we also feel that we are endlessly caught in an unwanted way of living.

This stress induced battle with time, translates into a battle to stay connected to the world around us, and to the things we do in life. It represents reduced ‘contextual wellbeing’, the wellbeing that arises when we experience belonging and engagement within a healthy social context (Street, 2018). Reduced contextual wellbeing means an increasingly threatened or fractured identity. If it goes on too long, we find ourselves wondering ‘what am I doing with my career/life etc?’ This can lead to wondering about ‘who am I, and what do I really want?’ and ultimately a great fear that we are not living the life we could lead, want to lead or need.

It is no wonder that an overloaded life leads to despondency and distress.

The irony of this situation is found in the fact that when we are frantically ticking off our life check lists to ‘reclaim time’, we are often motivated by a misplaced fear of ‘running out of time’. 

I believe we can create a better relationship with time, and indeed with all aspects of our lives, if we can better understand and act to ‘master our time’ (Street, 2011).

‘Time mastery’ leads to many wellbeing gains, including:

·        An increased sense of living in the here and now (a belief that we are in the midst of living our lives rather than trying to get them out of the way)

·        An increased sense of autonomy (coupled with a renewed sense of agency and ownership)

·        A greater sense of calm (we no longer feel constantly on alert and in survival mode)

So how do we find and experience ‘a better time’ in the midst of a stressed life?

Take Time to Put Your Check List Away

Continually rushing through items on your check list, can result in you feeling like a hamster caught in a wheel.

Check lists enable us to organise important tasks, acting as memory aides to help us prioritise our goals. They do not exist as finite lists of all that we need to get done. In fact, quite the opposite tends to be true. You send an important email to parents (tick) and receive ten replies with queries in them (add to the list). You finally manage to chat to a quiet student (tick) and now need to rethink how you can support them more fully (add to the list). There is never going to be a moment in your career when you say ‘OK that’s it. I have done all the work I need to do. I will now simply kick back and drink cocktails in the staff room…’ 

Thus, one of the most important things we can do to maintain a healthy relationship with time in the face of an all-consuming check list, is to ensure we put our check list away…at least once a week.

I appreciate that this may seem counterintuitive for many. Afterall, if our check list is not being completed, wont it just grow wildly and uncontrollably to make us feel more stressed than ever? In reality, the answer is ‘no’. If we put our check list away for a while, we can grow our capacity to manage our work and home demands. Taking a check list break ensure we can rest, relax and regain a sense of being in control of the life we want to lead. Taking a break ensures we take time to increase our capacity mentally and physically.  If we can increase our capacity, our checklist becomes less overwhelming, and we experience a better sense of time as we work through it.

Taking time away from your check list may mean taking a short break, a five-minute cup of tea, or even a short sleep when opportunity permits. It also needs to incorporate doing things ‘just for fun’. This may look like going to play sport with a friend or, going to out for a weekly family meal. It can mean anything that ensures you enjoy ‘the doing’ without any feelings of obligation or external pressure to perform.

Taking time to participate in meaningful activities, simply because you want to do them; is an important way to have a ‘good time’ in the short term; and creates a better sense of being in ‘synch with time’ in the overall term of life.

Make Time to Pay Attention

Mindfulness activities can be very beneficial in helping people engage more fully in the present, and experience of sense of living life now, rather than constantly ‘getting it out of the way’. Most simple mindfulness activities are designed to help you ‘take notice’ of yourself and the context around you. They often involve spending a few minutes a day opening yourself to the world around you, focusing on your breath and calming your mind. Yoga and Buddhist meditation are two great ways to discover mindfulness practices. 

In addition, many of us might well benefit by making small changes to each day, to constantly remind ourselves to be ‘in the day’ rather than trying to rush through it. For example, when you are stuck in traffic, let someone in ahead of you; take time to taste your food instead of simply eating it; remember to notice nature when you are walking the dog. You could even deliberately take the longest queue at the checkout (this is something that I always seem to do, even without trying).

Find Time to Nurture your Best Self Today

When we are overloaded, we often put the things we want to do to nurture ourselves, on hold. We may well have clear ideas about who we would like to be, and what we would like to do in the future; however, we decide to put this more ideal sense of our selves aside until life is ‘under control’. We decide at the start of winter that we will take up running… in the summer. Or we plan to start our novel… just not today.

I have met more than one chronically stressed client who no longer knows what music they like or even what food they enjoy. I have met anxious new mothers who thought haircuts were now an unnecessary luxury and stressed executives who no longer walked the dog they had once fussed over. Small positive aspects of self are gradually eroded as our battle to stay ahead of the day takes over. 

Current times necessitate some plans having to go on hold. (I can’t currently visit my family in the UK, as much as I am desperate to do so). Yet, there are other plans that we might be able to turn into action, right now.

Make a mental note of the things by which you define a positive, happy sense of yourself. How do you picture yourself when you imagine a better life? What do you look like? Do you have particular hobbies? Clothes? Play particular sports? How many of these aspects of your ‘best self’ have you nurtured during the past six months? Over the past year? Describe your ideal happy self and then contribute to this identity with one or two small gestures each week.

When we are overwhelmed, it helps to actively challenge and change our relationship with time. We need to embrace our connection to each day, even when we are trying to get much of each day ‘out of the way’.

If we can better ‘master time’, we will feel less stressed and more in control of our lives. We will enjoy a better time, more of the time, every day.

As Swiss philosopher Henri-Frédéric Amiel suggested, “all appears to change when we change”.

Articles and books referred to in this article:

COVID-19 and Teachers’ Somatic Burden, Stress, and Emotional Exhaustion: Examining the Role of Principal Leadership and Workplace Buoyancy (2021) by Rebecca J. Collie, AERA (American Educational Research Association) Online

Teacher Wellbeing During a Pandemic: Surviving or Thriving? (2020) by Anna Dabrowski (Social Education Research)

Contextual Wellbeing – creating positive schools from the insider out (2018) by Helen Street (published by Wise Solutions)

Live Overload (2011) by Helen Street (published by Finch)