How often do you catch yourself saying, “I don’t have enough time for (fill in the blank)?”
Between juggling your workload, professional and personal calendars, and professional and personal responsibilities, you are probably walking around feeling a bit overwhelmed. With too much to do in too little time. Am I right?!
You are not alone. You know others who can relate, because time anxiety is something that affects us all to some degree.
Occasionally, we may find ourselves longing for the days when time felt as care-free as we remembered it feeling during childhood summers.
But, alas…we are adults and that time pressure you feel is real. Very, very real.
With the official start to summer just a few weeks away, I find myself saying, yet again, “Where is the time going?” How did we get to this point in the calendar so fast, I wonder.
I also find myself reflecting on a story I’ve shared previously, but that bears repeating. It occurred during a speaking engagement/coaching combo event for a law firm. During a private 1:1 coaching session, a senior associate said, “I work really long hours. When I come home and have a free moment, I just want to have a glass of wine and binge Netflix. The last thing I want to do is think about my money.”
She’s not alone; she wasn’t alone then, nor is she today. Her sentiment is one that I hear some variation of, often.
Keep This in Mind
Yet, what she and many others tend to miss is how time pressure isn’t entirely due to a lack of time.
Psychology and emotions play a role, too. Here’s how that can look:
Enjoyment
I get that there are a lot of people who are NOT like me: They don’t get receipts for daily cash and card purchases; they don’t track their money; they don’t enter transactions into a spreadsheet and accounting software – weekly. They don’t do monthly/quarterly/mid-year/and year-end reviews. They don’t enjoy this aspect of money at all!
It is hard to make time for something you don’t enjoy.
Vision
If you don’t have a vision for what you want money to do for you, your goals might be opaque, as well.
It’s hard to make short-term sacrifices or be clear about the value of today’s trade-offs if you don’t see the connection between today’s actions and the results you want in your future.
Control
When it comes to time, you tend to be more reactive if you are not in control of your schedule (or as much of it as you’d like – like the senior associate mentioned above) either due to personal or work-related demands.
It’s hard to be proactive when you feel like you have little agency over what you do and when because of the expectations others (family, friends, team members, clients, and colleagues) have of you.
In addition to the role of enjoyment, vision, and control, is the fact that time isn’t static. I don’t mean this in the sense of the movement of time, per se. Rather, it’s about how the demands on your time today will look different in the future. So, how you relate to time now will also be different in the future.
And This, Too
If time is preventing you from prioritizing your money, what else is falling by the wayside?
If you just flinched a little or said, “ouch,” that’s a good thing!
I didn’t ask that question to shame you, but I did want to grab your attention.
Because I want you to see how the feeling (and sometimes the reality) of not having enough time reflects your relationship with time and your relationship with money.
You can’t manufacture more time to address what you don’t have time to do. However, you can sit in the uncomfortable gap between how you are spending your time and how you need to and look for clues on how to create more time through your choices and what you prioritize.
Yes, doing less is easier said than done, especially if you don’t have complete control of your calendar.
Yes, time is not always your friend. Particularly when you underestimate how long something will take to complete and/or discount the value and power of working in small sprints of 15-20 minutes.
Yes, time can prompt you to rush to the future, because you are so focused on what comes after you do the next thing. But you don’t actually do the next thing. Or worse, you don’t do it well.
So, if the last thing you want to think about is money and your reason for being less engaged with it is due to a lack of time, please know this:
You might be unwittingly contributing to your financial stress. 😯
One way to reduce this stress is to increase your awareness and understanding about the Venn diagram that is your relationship with time and your relationship with money. And, then take action based on the insight you discover from this intersection.
To unleash more of your money’s potential, give it more of your time, attention, and intention. Your financial results will thank you.
