Chronos Hacking: 11 Ways to Become a Champion Time-stretcher — Before It's Too Late 😜
What's your relationship to time? Crunched? Dilated? Enemy or friend? And more important, is there any way to come to peace with the one-way flow of time divided into a mere 24 hours a day? This post looks at 11 ways to stretch your time, or at least your perception of it.
The refrain keeps coming back, in meetings with business partners and colleagues, on calls with friends and clients. "I'm crazy busy. I just don't have enough time." The stress oozes through the screen and over the phone.
I wonder how much time we actually waste just talking about how much time we don't have to do what we need and want to do.
What's the deal with time? We always think we'll have more of it in the future than we do now. We fill up every waking moment, as if we were afraid of the emptiness. We get so frantic about how much of it we don't have and burden others with that stress, as if busyness were some badge of honor.
It turns out that busyness is a status symbol, a sign of competence and ambition. Empty days are synonymous with lack of purpose and meaning, even though the research clearly shows that feeling starved for time leads to anxiety, depression, stress and a drop in productivity. Time-crunched people experience less joy. That’s enough for me to reconsider my relationship to time!
The Time Paradox
We are all chasing after time, and yet it's hard to define, some physicists even say it doesn't exist, while others say it's crucial to our understanding of the universe. In any case, in a layman's world, we all only have 24 hours in a day, and time flows forwards, not backwards. It's so pervasive, we often only notice it when we feel it's all filled up.
Our relationship to the flow of time—how easy-going or rushed we feel—is what impacts our mental and physical health, as well as our interactions with others.
Time Affluence, Time Scarcity
Dr. Leslie Perlow at the Harvard Business School described time famine in 1999 as a feeling of having too much to do and not enough time to do it.
She also pointed out that time-management tactics done by individuals may "make individuals maximally efficient" and still "work groups as a whole may suffer." When people interact there is more than just time management involved.
The opposite of time scarcity is time affluence, the feeling of having enough time, which, by the way, is considered an ethical business practice. Something to think about when setting the next team deadline.
Stretching Time
We may not be able to add hours to the day, but research suggests that there are ways to feel like we have more time, which in turn improves subjective wellbeing and life satisfaction.
We have all experienced a meeting that lasted forever, when in fact it was exactly the same length as some fun activity that flew by. Part of our perception of time is biochemical. When we are having fun our neurons, pumped up with neurotransmitters, fire more quickly—we perceive more and time feels shorter. Boredom does the contrary.
On other occasions, through other mechanisms, when the brain is really busy, notably making memories, time feels longer—when we are in danger, for example, or when we encounter something new.
And the more familiar the world becomes, the less information your brain writes down, and the more quickly time seems to pass.
Emotion also impacts our judgement of time.
Recapturing Time
Before trying to perceive time differently, there is merit to eliminating all unnecessary time sucks and being intentional about what we do with this precious resource. Here are 3 ideas.
Spend a day or two writing down absolutely everything you do. To do this efficiently, set a timer every 15 minutes and keep a running list. The 15-minute intervals really help, because we tend to forget quickly. Then, list in hand, examine it in light of your goals, values and the roles you play in your life. Look for alignment and balance. Take pleasure in cutting the dead wood, saying no where possible, and delegating whatever you can.
Track your time just enough to understand what you can eliminate or delegate. Then stop tracking, as it can increase anxiety and start the downward spiral to getting less done and feeling even more pressured.
There are any number of time tracking apps such as RescueTime, that can help you track where your time is going.
Another way to recapture some time is simple to schedule it. Give yourself more time or ask for it to do what you need to do.
The third way is to spend money to buy time. The research is clear: the people who use money to buy time—say by working fewer hours, or outsourcing tasks—are happier than those who spend it on stuff. This mindset shift along has been valued at bringing a happiness boost equivalent to gaining $2200 more in annual income.
How To Feel Time Affluent
The next step consists of working on our perception of time. Here are 8 hacks that have been shown to increase a feeling of time affluence.
Spend time in a mindful state. Living in the moment, with no rehashing the past or fretting over the future, being fully present here and now, seems to expand time—anybody who has spent a day in sitting meditation can tell you that it can get excruciatingly long! A study published in Frontiers in Psychology found that “mindfulness meditators experienced less time pressure, more time dilation, and a general slower passage of time.”
Give away your time. The more we give, the more self-esteem and self-confidence we have, and the longer time stretches in our minds, according to Dr. Cassie Mogilner of the Wharton School of Business.
Feel awe. This particular emotion has a powerful ability to captivate attention on the present moment, according to an article published in Psychological Science. It also works when watching something awe-inspiring, or writing about a personal experience of awe or happiness.
Savor life. This is another way of being present. Jump into even the smallest pockets of free time to find enjoyment.
Reduce distractions and things that fragment time—the choppy nature of today's digital free-for-all speeds up time.
When you do choose to enjoy a distraction, don't feel guilty. Stress is a time suck.
Separate the time constraint from the stress response—acknowledge it, feel it, let it go. Often, a few deep breaths will do the trick.
Learn new things, meet new people, try new stuff, be spontaneous.
“We all have all the time there is. No one can tell you how to use your time. It is yours.”