WHY TIME MANAGEMENT WILL NEVER WORK FOR TWO-THIRDS OF US

And isn’t much better for 90% of everyone else

CCC. Aidan Jones on flickr.com

We spend a lot of time, money and energy trying to manage our time. For some of us, it works easily.

For most of us, it doesn’t.

Mainly we end up feeling resigned, guilty, stressed, anxious or like failures because we can’t manage our time.

We’ve been set up! Time management can never work for most people, because it doesn’t line up with how our brains are wired.

We can’t get better at managing our time without twisting our brains into unpleasant, inefficient knots.

But time management is only one way to think about time.

You can learn to be one of those people for whom time is an easy, and natural part of life! Things are handled. Time is your friend.

It takes getting curious about time, and playing with how we can handle it. It’s a leap into a strange and wonderful rabbit hole.

How do you think about time?
Time is an abstract concept, it’s tricky (if not impossible) to think about on its own. Fortunately, our brains have wonderful mechanisms for dealing with abstractions like time.

Surprisingly, the part of our brain that handles visual perception and imagination plays a critical role in how we think about time. It’s the key to understanding why time management doesn’t work for most of us.

Let me illustrate:

• Picture picking up a porcupine. Can you see it? It may not be very clear, but you probably have a sense of holding something in your hands.
  
• Imagine wandering through the woods. Can you see youself moving through them? Again, it may not be very distinct, but you probably have some perception of moving through space.
• Visualize standing still on a sidewalk, watching streams of traffic slowly pass you by. Can you see the traffic? At the very least you probably have some visual sensation of something passing you by.

Now, think about what an hour looks like. Not an hour on a clock or a calendar. But an actual hour.

Huh?

You can’t picture an hour. There’s nothing there to see.

But time is real, it’s the fourth dimension we live in. There’s up-down, side-to-side, front-to-back.

And time.

What our brains are doing
When we think and talk about time, our brains borrow from how they process the physical dimensions.

There are three ways our brains and language deal with time:

1. Time is a physical thing, like a porcupine

• If I only had more time!
• I know I can squeeze a little more out of my day.
• That doctor’s appointment is really messing up my week.

Now switch out the time language for porcupine language:

• If I only had more porcupines!
• I know I can squeeze a little more out of my porcupine.
• That porcupine is really messing up my hands.

2. Time is a landscape we move through

• I know I can make it through next week.
• I’m trying to figure out how to get to the end of the project in one piece.
• I’m just crawling today.

Switch out the time language for walking through the woods language:

• I know I can make it through the swamp.
• I’m trying to figure out how to get to the end of the hike without being eaten by a bear.
• I’m just crawling through the woods today.

3. We stand still, and time passes us by

• I can’t wait for the weekend to get here.
• I wish time would hurry up.
• The day is just crawling.

And do the switch:

• I can’t wait for the ice cream truck to get here.
• I wish the traffic would hurry up.
• The traffic is just crawling.

Where does time management fit?
For the most part, time management deals with time as physical stuff: You can rearrange your schedule. You can block out an hour. You can structure your day.

If your brain is most comfortable thinking about time as stuff that can be manipulated or acted on, then time management might work for you.

But if you naturally think about time as a landscape you move through, or as something that passes you by, time management is a terrible metaphor for your brain.

And even if you mainly think of time as something physical, thinking about objects as things to be managed may not track with how you naturally relate to the world either. If you’re an artist working with clay, you probably don’t think about managing your pottery. If you’re a mechanic, you probably don’t think about managing the engines.

Of course, there are people who naturally think about time as stuff, and have brains that enjoy managing, arranging and structuring things.

But that’s not most of us.

What happens when the metaphor of time management doesn’t line up with how you naturally think?

Trying to manage time will either fail, or will be a huge drain on your energy and focus.

Rather than continuing to fail, or wasting that energy, how about finding a way of thinking that actually works for you?

So what are we supposed to do?
You have some options here.

You could keep on trying to manage time. It may be a struggle, but you can at least stop feeling badly about it.

You could toss your hands in the air and give up all hope. Keep on losing track of where you promised to be. Keep on forgetting to get that important stuff done. Live with the reputation of being unreliable. But at least know that it’s not your fault that you can’t manage your time.

Or, you can get curious about what could work for you.

You can start to explore how your mind works, and how you most easily relate to time. You can find ways of thinking about time, and all that stuff you could be doing, in ways that are natural. You can become one of those people for whom time isn’t an issue. Time’s just handled!

You can fall in love with time again, and make it yours.

To keep on exploring
If you’re curious about how to become one of those people who are just easy and natural when it comes to time, register yourself today into our webinar series.

It’s a fun and playful exploration into our own ways of thinking about time, and the quickest way to learn how you can build up the toolkit and approaches that will work for you and your life.

There’s a special offer for anyone who registers in the next few days–our “Buzz Building” special.

And stay tuned for more! We’ll be launching the new website dedicated to time in about a month and will let you know as soon as we do. There’ll be a lot of great material coming soon.

Meanwhile, get curious, and have a great day!