The cannibalization of time
How often do we feel, across the week, we are running out of time? No time to pick up the kids, no time to finish that task, or to reach the meeting or simply no time to sleep a bit more. How frustrated do we feel about this? Or anxious about consequences that might result from not having another slot? If this is familiar to you, we have something in common, somehow in a moment of a day, somehow during the week. I feel you, and that links us in a certain way. Why does it seem time is getting shorter week after week, year after year?
No, I do not think it is because we are getting older and things in general seem to acquire another scale and, thus, time is shorter.
One of my daily activities is to listen and observe others, during an interview slot, an observation exercise, an immersion task or even a brainstorming session for example. Very regularly I listen and observe people struggling with time. If we break down our daily schedule and actions on this subject, we may say we have tasks where we are the owner and others whose ownership is held by another person. Here is an example: if I am a freelancer and responsible to sell my services to potential clients, I am the owner of preparing a good proposal and selling it to a client. For another way, if I work at a factory in production chain department, processes and some operations I have to go through and with, are not necessarily under my total ownership/control. Someone created those and, at some stage, I just need to go through it or apply when needed. In these situations, where I am not the owner, I lose main control in some parts of the full chain, if I look at it through an overall view.
Let us focus on the situations where we are the owner of the action, from beginning till the end. Just because when we are not, someone is and the same should apply. After all, we live in a society where that ownership mixes all the time between people. And each of us is responsible for those parts we should call ourselves owners.
So, why do we feel time is getting shorter? Why do we continuously battle against the watch and wish we would have just a couple more minutes? Why do we reply so often "I have no time" during the day?
There may be several reasons why these feelings arise if we go deep on the topic. I share my opinion by summarising it in five:
1. Because we do things wrongly
We need to question more and all the time. We need to question ourselves if there is another way to perform the way we desire that would ease our life. Because we tend to accommodate and not question, we end up being very good and proficient doing things wrongly. If I use a tool or an interface to perform an activity for years, ignoring new tools and potential improvement to make our days easier, I not only procrastinate innovation and adaptation, but end up spending time instead of saving it.
2. Because we do not prioritise
We, human beings, have big struggles prioritising. Distinguishing what is considered urgent to perform from what is important, is hard. The emergency room here pops up when I reach a point where my agenda is full of urgent things and a few more important. This generally happens when we let important things drag for days until they transform themselves in urgent scenarios. The trick here is to manage well important things, so we can avoid them transforming and become urgent. This way we can have more important things in the agenda than urgent, as long as we know how to manage and work it out. Knowing why, how and what to prioritize is critical. The more expert in prioritizing we can be, the more we promote time saving.
3. Because we resist to change
Resistance is inherent to our nature. We resist more than we let flow. It is positive to resist a few things, namely, some food temptations or harmful addictions for example. Though, when talking about time under this subject, resistance is usually not a good friend. “Time flies”, it’s commonly said. Additionally, in the environment we live in, information and processes change faster than we have ever seen. If around us the speed of change is overwhelming, how can we resist to change that much? How is it acceptable that we spend such a big amount of time resisting and doing the same old things or having the same old approach? We resist because we fear to fail, we resist because we prefer to stay comfortable where we are, we resist because we do not feel comfortable in what we perceive as an uncomfortable context. We resist because we reject the unknown. Unknown does not make us feel right nor confident. Sometimes I embrace projects where a client wants to discuss solutions in depth on our first or second meeting, even before official kick-off. How can we possibly know the solution at this stage, if we haven’t done any sort of inspiration activity yet? How can we possibly know what the solution might be if we did not bring the people we are designing for to the table yet? Because we resist, we do not capitalize time, and we keep applying the same errors, same methods, same thoughts, which makes us spend time, though without acknowledging it.
4. Because we have no Plan B
Plan A is, generally, our only bet. If an unforeseen issue occurs and plan A does not go through or as we planned, we feel we are screwed. We tend to not dedicate any time thinking about a plan B, prior to action. We avoid good, thorough and structured plans. What if plan A does not go well? What if we cannot make this happen? What can we prepare in case this does not go as considered? Can we avoid the worst by having a backup? The truth is that most of us do not (want to) invest time thinking about alternatives and plans B, C or D. When unsatisfactory things happen, it is often too late to have a backup alternative. With no plan B we may end up spending much more than we thought, solving a problem that could have been predicted in a recent past, with not much time and money invested.
5. Because we just do not make it simple
This one is my favourite! Human beings are not minimalist by nature. But we have to, more than ever. Technology, for example, changes too quickly nowadays. We are barely capable of following daily news with the amount of information we are faced with when we wake up and check our phone. If we do not cut the extras and focus on what is really necessary, we are just spending extra time on things we do not have to, and we shouldn’t. Minimalism is, today, a great ally to perform efficiently and on schedule. We should question ourselves everyday: how might we do this under a more simple and better alternative? How might we cut extras? How might we focus on what is really needed? What is exactly the real problem we are trying to solve? What is critical now and what can be solved in a later stage? Is there something we can delegate so we can focus on what is important?
Minimalism is a common factor in personal and professional life. If we try to make things simple in personal life, it is easier to replicate that approach at work. We can start from where we want. Nevertheless, it is critical to start from somewhere.
At the end of the day, if we focus on what is above and rewrite our day on a simple sheet of paper (and this only takes a few minutes!), we may easily identify points or moments we could have done or approached in a different way, saving us time, even if just a little. Every bit here can be extremely valuable. So let us not underestimate any inch we may be able to conquer. Otherwise, we will keep cannibalising our time while putting in risk the part we have left.
If you got to this point of the article and you are still reading this, high chance is because you allowed yourself time to be curious. Just want to let you know you are on the right track :)
And be aware, we must have courage, assume a risk taking attitude and be comfortable in a liquid state... with a team player spirit.