Menu
Thanks to Einstein, we know that "time is relative". And most of us would say: "relatively short". Checking the time every day usually tells us one thing: the abundance of tasks cannot be completed in the short time available. Stress, deadline pressure, discomfort... Everyone knows the resulting feelings. They all have one thing in common: they are unpleasant. But what can be done about it? After all, everyone should be in the same situation, so why is there no known collective solution? One thing is certain: creating more time does not work. Changing your own attitude to time, on the other hand, does.
Some work around the clock, others track every task meticulously and some don't seem to be affected by the lack of time at all. Although there is no difference between the valuable commodity of time, the different time types do so quite considerably. In the article "How to Be More Productive by Hacking Your Perception of Time The evolution of time management in 5 stages and 3 epiphanies" by Dr. Adam Bell talks about 5 different phases or types.
You are not in control of your own time. No matter how unpleasant the rhythm may be, all your activities, especially sleep, are adapted to your obligations. The resulting deficiencies are enormous. Shift workers in particular often suffer from disturbed sleep rhythms, to name just one consequence. In my view, the human body cannot survive this state for long without health consequences. No matter what you can do to improve your own perception of time, the top priority should be to get out of this unhealthy state. In order to be able to determine more about their own time, many people introduce a well-known tool: Time tracking.
Many self-employed people will be familiar with the situation - if you are responsible for your own time management, you want to make the most of it. So it makes sense to measure your own time allocation as precisely as possible. Recognizing weak points, exploiting potential, eliminating time wasters - that all sounds very sensible at first. But what remains? The feeling of squeezing maximum effectiveness/productivity out of every free minute can't work in the long term. If you can learn anything from this phase, it's the following: Be conscious of your own time and see it as a precious commodity that should be used for the things you personally consider important. What this should never turn into is a mutation into a time-tracking machine. Creative activities in particular suffer enormously from the idea that every free minute has to be put to good use. What follows from phase 2 is a relaxation:
The smart time divider divides the upcoming daily tasks into small pieces, which are then tackled one by one. A break is taken between each unit. For example, using the Pomodoro technique: 25 minutes productivity, 5 minutes break. Sounds a lot more relaxed than Type 2, which might have filled the 5 minutes with something else. As Bell writes in his article, this technique works very well for one person and not at all for another. Negative consequences could be, for example, the interruption of one's own workflow, which then only gets rolling again after the 5-minute break.
If you're struggling at first, varying the work-break ratio can help. For Bell, this is where the Ultradiane rhythm remedy. This is based on the body's own rhythms and feels more natural for many people. There is also an article on this by Brad Buzzard entitled "Avoid Burnout and Increase Awareness Using Ultradian Rhythms: Circadian rhythms' lesser know cousins may hold the key to a more fruitful day“.
Book Tip: Who is interested in the Sleep rhythms is interested in the book "The Circadian Code: Sleep restfully, lose weight, be healthy." recommended by Satchin Panda*.
Back to Bell: he has discovered a 90 to 20 rhythm for himself, with which he has achieved the best results. This means 90 minutes of "activity" and a 20-minute break. What can you do in these 20 minutes? Examples are going for a walk, doing physical exercises, meditating, listening to music, etc.
But the journey to a new sense of time should not be completed with the third type, as a burdening time pressure still gnaws at you.
The single best productivity hack that everyone should aspire to - don't keep a schedule.
Naval ravikant
For his next step, Bell consults the entrepreneur Naval Ravikant, who advises not to keep to a schedule. Sounds crazy at first? Good. If you remove any time pressure from the overall structure, a gap is created. A gap that can make room for something new. Old thought patterns that were already firmly anchored in our brains can be loosened and filled with a new kind of productivity. How can this calculation work? The absence of time pressure increases our own sense of well-being and therefore our own productivity. This naturally has an impact on your entire life - a prospective gain that makes it worthwhile to rethink your own structures.
The biggest problem for type 4 is the interplay of their own ideas and social structures, which are not (or cannot) be held so loosely. This leads us to the fifth type.
Bell quickly realizes that the outside world is unfortunately not as generous as he is with his time. As soon as you find yourself in an overall structure with other people, and this is usually always the case, you are inevitably influenced by their routines. As long as you don't lead a solitary life on your own, there will always be phases in which you will have to bow to certain deadlines.
What does this mean for your own attitude towards time? Inescapable deadlines should give an indication of (re-)prioritization instead of being a stress signal for the body. So, if you have a certain deadline that you have to meet, your own attitude towards it plays a much more important role than many have assumed so far. One should not put oneself in the position of giving in to the stress impulse here. Rather, you should face the deadline stoically, without letting yourself be overwhelmed by emotions too much. Because if this is indeed a fixed deadline, then it will inevitably come closer, whether you stress yourself out or not.
The way we look at time & deadlines does not change the perceived scarcity at first. However, the consequences change drastically if one can reduce the stress-inducing effect. In addition, completely different aspects can be determined, for example the subjective speed of time. If one has fun or works concentrated on something, time seems to fly by. This is because we do not focus on time per se. If one wants to achieve the opposite effect, that is, the slowing down of time, we have to concentrate on the here and now.
Various studies have proven exactly that - mindfulness can lead to time slowing down for the person in question. Subjectively, this can mean that more time appears to be available, as it passes much more slowly.
Regarding subjective time, mindfulness meditators experienced less time pressure, more time dilation, and a general slower passage of time.
Frontiers in Psychology
On the topic of mindfulness, meditation, and subjective perception, further Blog article.
Sebastian Lochbronner
86830 Schwabmünchen
Germany