Good Life Project - On “Time Anxiety:” Feeling Like Falling Behind in Your Own Life | Chris Guillebeau

Episode Date: April 10, 2025

Are you plagued by a constant feeling that you're running out of time to do the things that truly matter? In this insightful conversation, Chris Guillebeau, author of Time Anxiety: The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way to Live, shares eye-opening strategies to reclaim your sense of purpose and start living more intentionally. Discover potent mindset shifts and surprising tactics to finally break free from the debilitating grip of time anxiety.You can find Chris at: Website | A Year of Mental Health Substack | Instagram | Episode TranscriptIf you LOVED this episode, you’ll also love the conversations we had with Cassie Holmes about managing and expanding time.Check out our offerings & partners: Join My New Writing Project: Awake at the WheelVisit Our Sponsor Page For Great Resources & Discount CodesADHA Aha! is a podcast hosted by Laura Key that explores pivotal moments when people realized they or their loved ones have ADHD, sharing both touching and humorous stories of ADHD discovery. Listen wherever you get your podcasts. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the defining problem of my life. I just have this pressure in my life and like how can I adjust and how can I resolve this for myself? So you ever feel like you're just losing the battle against the clock like time is passing you by? New York Times best-selling author, globe trotter and master of unconventional living and an old friend of mine, Chris Gillibault, has dedicated his career to dismantling outdated myths and giving us new tools for better living. In his new book, Time Anxiety, he reveals breakthrough strategies to reclaim your time and live with purpose.

How do we make choices? How do we know what actually matters? How does what we do now connect to something that ultimately matters to us? We think that if we dial in the system, I just fill that space with more stuff to do. We worry that time is running out because time is running out. That's the bad news, right? But the good news is... Good Life Project is sponsored by Aveeno Baby.

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a really contrarian view on a lot of these things too. And then ask the big question, how can I help? Like how can we actually approach this differently? The focus that you've been really digging into over the last chunk of years and the focus of your new book, Time Anxiety, is what you term time anxiety. Take me into this, what are we actually talkingiety, is what you term time anxiety. Take me into this. What are we actually talking about

when we're talking about time anxiety? I think we're talking about a couple things. One is the fear of running out of time. So kind of the existential, there's not enough time in my life for the things that I want to do, or there's something I should be doing right now, but I'm not sure quite what it is,

or maybe I have some regret over something that I did or shouldn't have done or should have done, you know, years ago. And now I feel like it's too late. And so I have this ever present anxiety and I don't quite know what to do about it. And the other part is what do I do right now? Like what do I do next? You know, of all the things that I could be doing, how do I actually not just structure my day, but just make some decisions? And, you know, I feel overwhelmed.

And it's not so much a productivity problem, that's how a lot of people try to approach or solve it. And then if you go down that road, you end up getting really good at doing the wrong things, perhaps. I've done that certainly in my life. But it's much more of how do we make choices? How do we know what actually matters?

How does what we do now connect to something that ultimately matters to us? And so you've got the existential kind, you've got the day-to-day kind, and I feel like this is just very, very common. And when I first came up with the phrase and started just playing with it a little bit and just talking with people, I noticed that it wasn't just me. Almost everybody that I talked to, probably more than any other book that I've worked on

in 15 years, just about everybody I talked to was like, I have that. And maybe I have more of the first kind or more of the second kind, but one way or another I have that. And they started using some phrases that just were very common also and I just talked to so many people and they would all say the same thing about like, this is me all the

time or my friends and I talk about this, but we never had a name for it. This is the defining problem of my life, sometimes people would say. And so that's why I was so interested in it, just from the perspective of studying it, but I also don't come to it intellectually. I come to it just from my own struggle in life and how do I resolve this for myself? And I do think it's so pervasive, certainly in my life. I remember, it was actually last year, having conversations with Liz Gilbert, who had asked me to write a piece for her,

a wonderful sub stack, Letters from Love, and where you write a letter from love to yourself. And the thing that just popped into my mind when I thought about what would I write about is this feeling of feeling like I've fallen behind in my own life. You know, like I had expectations when I was a kid, when I was in my twenties, when I was in my thirties, like this is where I would be. And now I'm, I'm in that season of time where I'm measuring, am I there? And I feel like I've just been perpetually behind. And that the window of time that I have to, quote, catch up, it's closing.

There's less road ahead of me than there is behind me at this point in my life. It's a pretty safe bet. So is that sort of an experience that commonly would be folded under time anxiety? It is. And you know, the interesting thing is it doesn't necessarily connect to a certain age. So that's, that's what's interesting about it. There are 17 year olds who might say almost the same thing. They wouldn't say the part about, you know, the number of years ahead of me versus behind me and such, but they would also say, I feel like I have missed something or I feel like it is too late for something.

And so they have that sense of, I just have this pressure in my life and how can I adjust and how can I move forward? And so for those of us who are not 17, who are on the other side of it, it's easy to say like, oh, that's silly because the world is their oyster. They can do so much and such, but it's a very real feeling, you know, to have this, this sense of what do I do, you know, and, and how, what have I achieved or accomplished and how does that measure up to what I hoped for? And, you know, if I'm to make some sort of adjustment, what, what is that? Um, so I think it's actually common among people of

all ages. Is there a world in which time anxiety is good? And here's why I'm asking. There are a lot of folks who are experts in just generalized anxiety. And what they'll often tell you is that anxiety is a natural phenomenon and that there's value in anxiety. There's fuel in anxiety. There's a motivating or activating energy and anxiety. But then there's value in anxiety. There's fuel in anxiety. There's a motivating or activating energy and anxiety, but then there's a tipping point where it becomes dysfunctional. It actually stops you from being who you want to be and living the life you want to live. Is there a corollary here with time anxiety? A few years ago, I wrote this other book called The Happiness of Pursuit, which was about my quest to go to every country and then other people who'd pursued all these different kinds of quests and such.

And I wanted to look at the commonalities between them, all these different people. What do they have in common besides the fact that they pursued this quest? And one of those things was they tended to have what I called an emotional awareness of mortality, which is not just, oh, I understand that everyone dies. Like that's an intellectual awareness, but the emotional awareness is like someday I will die. And that sense seemed to kind of urge them along, right? And nudge them towards action and get them thinking about

what is this thing I want to do? And so I do think that there is a corollary to that in the sense of, okay, why do we ultimately feel anxious about anything? Well, the one sentence distillation of it is because we are going to die, right? Do we ultimately feel like time is running out? We worry that time is running out

because time is running out. That's the bad news, right? The good news is I think it's actually very healthy to live with that emotional awareness of mortality. And it's kind of fun. It can actually give you a built-in excuse for anything you don't wanna do. Once you just remind yourself, like, oh yeah, okay,

I do have a limited amount of time. Well, that can feel very scary and overwhelming, or it can be like, okay, I have a limited amount of time, so what are the things I'm doing right now that are actually not a good use of that time or are not bringing satisfaction to my life or value to anyone else? How can I put things in buckets accordingly?

And even as I say, use it as an excuse for something that you don't want to do. I had this whole section in the book that my editor and I went back and forth on because she was like, oh, this sounds a little bit rude. And I was like, I know, I know. But listen, just hear me out. Because I was like, once you have the built-in excuse,

if somebody asks you to do something that you don't want to do, you can just say, no, thank you. I'm going to die. I don't want to go to this party or this meeting because I'm going to die. And then they might be like, oh my god, are you OK? I'm like, yeah, I don't think I'm going to die tomorrow. But I don't know.

I'm not sure. So whether you use language like that or not, I think the point is it can urge you towards action and urge you towards maybe a realignment and thinking, OK, what does matter? If very few things matter, ultimately in the end, what is on that short list? And how can I spend more time doing those things and less time doing other things, but also just less time

worrying about the other things? Because it's not always the doing of the things that causes the most anxiety, it's the thinking about them. I stress out a lot about my email and other communication and I don't actually spend a lot of time on it. I spend more time feeling regretful or feeling mad at myself for not responding to things than I actually do responding to things. So I think learning to let go is helpful. If somebody is listening to this and like, I think I'm feeling this, but I'm not entirely sure. What are some of the things that people have said to you, like the scripts that they have in their head or the things that they're saying to themselves

when they're experiencing this? So somebody might be able to say, oh yeah, that's actually me, I'm going through this right now. It's often a lot of physical symptoms, so it's not just a feeling, it's like I actually feel like this tightness in my chest, I feel like discomfort in my stomach,

maybe I have headaches, Maybe I'm dizzy. And then, you know, just some symptoms or characteristics of feeling depressed or anxious in general. I just, I have panic attacks or I have symptoms of panic attacks. Maybe it's not a full blown panic attack, but I just feel very disconcerted and I'm constantly trying to reset myself or regulate my nervous system and I can fix it sometimes for a period or for a time, but then it's always kind of looming.

Like it's this thing that's just always there. And so maybe I'm distracting myself. Maybe I do find some purpose for a while, but then I kind of go back to this point of like, am I using my time well? Am I doing this thing that I feel like I should be doing, but I don't quite know what it is? One of the things I've said, I've caught myself saying a number of times,

are things like, I wish I had another day in the week, or another hour in the day, or another month in the year, or I wish there were two of me. Right, right. Which I probably, the world doesn't wish, but sometimes I do. Well, this is doesn't wait for this. I'm sure. Sometimes I do. Well, this is interesting.

I have this whole like exercise about the eighth day of the week. I imagine that you had an eighth day of the week, which is a little bit different than like your ideal day. You know, like a lot of people are familiar with this exercise of like, what's your ideal day? But your ideal day is like something that comes along like once in forever.

But if you had an extra day every week, what you do on that day might be different than your single idealistic day. So it can be helpful to actually ask yourself, if I actually had this extra day. And what people tend to revert to is always catching up. I would use that day to catch up on things. And so I think part of the exercise is to take that away and say, okay, like assume that on this eighth day, can't use it to catch up on your email. And obviously on many of the other days, there are probably people who need things from you. You might have childcare or other responsibilities to other people. So let's just assume that on this eighth day, you're not obligated to anyone else.

This is really your day. How would you spend that day? Right? And that can be helpful in just kind of figuring out what are those things that I actually want to do and what does purposeful time look like for me? Yeah, I love that exercise. You mentioned earlier that there are a whole lot of things that people try and do to, quote, fix this problem that tend to not be super effective. And I guess some of them probably even deepen the problem.

What are some of the things that you see people turn to and then end up giving up on because they're either not working or actually making it worse? Well, the first thing I thought of when you said how you wish you could clone yourself or have the extra day is I think there's always this advice about just get up earlier. Just get up one hour earlier. And I think

that's problematic because it works for one day, right? But you can't, like, what if you're already getting up early, first of all, you know, what if you already are not getting enough sleep, you know, sleep deprivation is not a great, you know, long-term strategy for pretty much anything. And so it's not just that. I feel like there's a whole, there's a whole wave of these kinds of like tips and hacks and such and even a good productivity system because I was like super into productivity for so long and like you know read all the books and like I was always trying different apps and lists and things and I think those those tools have a place you know but also as I said if you're not careful you get really good at doing the wrong things. And ultimately, all these tools and systems, they just create the potential for more and is more really what you need in your life.

And also, there's going to be more after that. It's not like you're going to reach a point where you're like, okay, now I am more productive. Now everything is all buttoned up. No, you'll just continue to make more and more. So I think the whole productivity industrial complex is something that I very much embraced for a long time and then kind of just have become more and more skeptical because I think productivity without purpose

is ultimately meaningless. I so agree with you. And I think that we think that if we dial in the system and then we get all the things checked on our list, then oh, we have all this extra time in our day and we finally can do the things we wanna do and we can breathe and be spacious and meditate and hang out with our friends.

And it's been my experience and I'm raising my hand because I do this all the time. I just fill that space with more stuff to do. And not stuff that I'm excited to do or wanna do or just that gives me peace. I just like, okay, so now I've opened up two hours, how can I use that time productively now too? And there's a never-ending torrent of stuff

that will flood into whatever time I open up with whatever system I'm using that, the end of the day, doesn't make my experience of life better. Something I've tried to do is replace productivity with value or just thinking of the word valuable as opposed to productive and just asking myself not how can I use my time most productively,

but how can I use my time in a valuable way? How can I, one little trick I have is from time to time, maybe once or twice a day, I'll look back on the last 40 minutes and be like, what did I do the last 40 minutes? How valuable were my last 40 minutes? And so the valuable is the key words. It's not just how productive. Value can be found in a conversation with a friend. Value could be found in rest. Value could be found in going for a walk, anything that you choose to be valuable.

But I think there's also times where you could look back on your last 40 minutes and say, actually, it probably wasn't that valuable. I'm not really even sure what I did. Maybe I was here at my desk and presumably I spent that time somehow, but I couldn't really tell you what it was. And so that's just a little moment to be like, okay, well, what can I do for the next 40 minutes to find value? So not so much filling the space always with productivity,

although that's OK, too. But as you said, maybe just not making it the default all the time. Yeah, I mean, you use that word value, too. And that's something that I've been coming back to increasingly in my own life, just more broadly. I think anyone who's ever had any kind of corporate job at some point

had some sort of workshop or training or something like that where they did a values exercise where it's like pick out the five words that are like your strongest values. And then we pick out the five words and we never look at them again. And we never really understand what those words were about in the first place. We're just like, oh, family, but was actually mean to me. Creativity was actually. But it sounds like what you're describing here, though, is that understanding what we value, what we hold dear, what we hold important, actually is incredibly important when we're making these decisions.

I think it's very important to know what that looks like for you. And the answer could be different for lots of people. I mean, I think you've done a lot of work on this question and come at it from different approaches and such. I think in general, a lot of people don't really spend a great deal of time thinking about what they want.

What they want to get out of life, what they do value, not just the buzzwords or the five values from the list, but ultimately what is important to them, given the fact that life is short, time is limited, every yes means we're saying no to lots of things. And again, it's an interesting thing because it can feel pressuring and it's not, I think there's a way to make it not feel pressuring.

I think that's really key. And like when I wrote this book, I was like, I have to find a way to write this book in a way that doesn't actually make people anxious. You know? That's right. I need to get through this. I can just find the facts and the information

and then go do the thing. Exactly. Like I'm even thinking, like I'm doing a book tour and I'm like preparing for the, you know, I'm like writing, I'm like, how do I write the talk in a way that is actually gonna provide some relief? You know, that's the whole goal. The whole goal is to provide some relief,

not just make people feel stressed out because they're already stressed out. But I do think there's a way to come at these questions in a way that provides relief. Yeah, no, 100%. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. Good Life Project is sponsored by the podcast ADHD AHA, hosted by Laura Kee. So you know those light bulb moments when something finally clicks. That's what this show is all about. Those powerful aha moments when people realize

they or someone they love has ADHD. What struck me about this podcast is how it illuminates ADHD in a way we don't usually talk about it. Through intimate conversations, Laura's guests share stories about living with impulse spending, wrestling with decision-making, and navigating social anxiety. talk about it. Through intimate conversations, Laura's guests share stories about living with impulse spending, wrestling with decision-making, and navigating social anxiety. Listening to

Jessica McCabe's episode about motherhood and ADHD medication opened my eyes to perspectives I'd never considered. So whether ADHD is part of your story or not, these authentic narratives offer powerful insights that can shift how you see the world. To listen to ADHD AHA, search for ADHD AHA in your podcast app. That's ADHD AHA with AHA spelled A-H-A. Let's dip into some of the ideas, like the big ideas that you tee up around time anxiety

and also strategies, sort of like how do we actually, okay, so we've kind of spent some time on the problem and how it shows up in different people's lives, in my life, and some of the things that come up. But let's talk about what do we do about this? One of the things, the concepts that you float fairly early on in the book and the conversation is this notion of cognitive distortions.

Take me into this. Yeah, first things first. For someone who is feeling overwhelmed, who has the sense of, you know, I've got this, this restlessness, this time anxiety. The first thing I think we need to do is give yourself time, however you can, give yourself the gift of time. I like to think of it like this, like wherever you can just kind of make some even short-term decisions to kind

of triage and notice what it feels like to actually give yourself time. So if there are things on your calendar, like, can you look at your calendar for the next couple of weeks? You know, can you take one or two items off and notice before you fill that space with something else, just kind of pay attention to how it feels to do that. Can you learn to maybe not do everything with excellence?

And this is hard for some people, if you've got straight A's all the time, but I think it's actually important to do some things poorly. If your laundry is not perfect, if the dishes are not perfect, okay, life goes on, right? I think I've mastered those things, by the way. I mean, I've mastered not doing them in a masterful way.

You've got it. And then we can dive into, okay, what are the cognitive distortions, like these kind of thought processes or neurological patterns that we get into, where it's like, I am not going to be okay. I'm not going to be able to fix this problem. I experienced a small amount of rejection or some minor rejection. And now this takes over my life. I'm personalizing it. I'm catastrophizing it. I'm like, this is the worst thing ever.

I can't go into the woods because there are bears in the woods. It can prevent all kinds of decisions. And so when it comes to time anxiety, it's like, I will never solve this problem. I am condemned to go through this all the time. And so maybe just thinking through like, where does this come from? And might there be a different story that we could tell ourselves?

Maybe your story is like, yeah, you've had some struggles. This is the human condition. But are there not times in which you have won as well? Are there not times in which you have been able to figure things out? And just kind of beginning to tell yourself a little bit of a different story. I've always had this very negative internal monologue. It's very self-critical. And I guess for a while I thought, I wasn't sure if it was everybody else has this or nobody else has this. I don't know what you think about this, but I always had this, I was always being very critical of myself

and I learned something to do about that was, I can't always silence it. Like it's just there, it's been there for a long time. But what I can do is kind of add to it and just add this counterpoint of, okay, well, you have figured things out. Maybe you can figure this thing out too. This thing did not go well, but that's okay

because here's a few other things that have gone well and you've been here before. Yeah. It sounds not too dissimilar to Byron Katie's work. Just a few simple questions, one of them being, is it true? And what is the evidence that's true? And is there a different story that we can tell about these exact same facts that we're spinning about? Here's my curiosity around this. I think we all deal with cognitive distortions. We kind of like, you know, there's some objective circumstance out there,

and then there's the weirdness, the story that we spin about it. We distort it into, like you said oftentimes, these self-flagellating stories about the thing, about our ability to do the thing, about whatever it may be, and then the more we repeat it, the more it becomes our reality. We think, oh, this is actually,

this is the circumstance itself. I love the sort of the interventions that you just offered up, kind of like pulling back and saying, is there a different story we can tell about this? Here's my curiosity around this. And it's always been my curiosity around cognitive distortions, however you want to phrase them. It's about the moment before that. Because before we can actually do this, before we can do the intervention,

we need to actually be able to notice that we're in this cycle, that we're telling this story that is distorting reality. How do you do that? How do you catch yourself? So that you can actually realize, oh wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, now let me actually do this thing. I don't know a way to catch myself beforehand. It's more like when it's happening. The thing about when it happens

is it doesn't just happen once. It doesn't just come and go. It is a loop, right? So I think the more you do it, or the more you begin to add to the story or otherwise counter the distortion in some way, perhaps the sooner you begin to notice it. So you wallow in it less or you fixate less

or you obsess less. I mean, this is something I used to just do this for weeks, like over a single issue, you know? Whereas now it's like, at least when I do it, I can recognize a little bit of what's happening. I found that for me, the real difference maker there has been, and this is something that people

generally don't like to hear, because it's not a momentary thing, it's been a mindfulness practice, which for me is 15 years in the making. It builds slowly over months and then years where you just kind of gain this capacity, the what they call meta awareness, kind of zoom out for a moment and be like,

oh, where's my mind right now? And that has been life changing because it lets me notice when I'm spinning and then start to question it the way that you're saying. People don't love that answer because it's not as quick as- It takes work. It takes work. It takes time, which then adds to the time and anxiety

because now you don't have it to do something else you want to do. I do want to bounce back to what you said to tee this topic of cognitive distortions up because you certainly gave us a preamble, which is actually one of the opening points in strategies in the book, which is this notion of giving yourself more time. In the conversations that you've had

or in your own experience, have you come up with people feeling a sense of shame when they think about actually carving out more of that time for themselves? Because I sometimes question it myself. I'm like, I've got so much other stuff to do, important stuff, stuff that I say that I really care about. And like my schedule is massively overburdened. I can't

be doing this. And if I do it, I'm like, ah, I'm not doing a good thing here. I, you know, our mutual friend Gretchen Rubin, I feel like she has a great answer to this and to your question about shame. I think definitely. I think people feel shame about all the things that they haven't done or that they feel like they haven't done to a certain degree of completion or quality. And I think that can be an overriding force or factor in our lives. And I was on this conversation with Gretchen and some other people once and someone asked some question about this and I think I gave an answer that was like, okay. And then she gave a much better answer,

which is something to the effect of like, when you carve out time for yourself, ultimately you're going to be a better person. Like this is going to be good for you, and this will also enable you to care for others more effectively, you know? So if it's someone asking this question, who's a caretaker or someone who's like, but I really don't have time, well, you know, I don't want to suggest that it's easy or that anyone can do this to the same degree.

But it is ultimately important to care for yourself. If you care for yourself, then you're going to be able to not only be better off for yourself, but also be a better caretaker or just a better person for other people or for all those responsibilities that you have. Yeah. It's almost like this shame story itself is a cognitive distortion that you start to spin. And it's like sort of debriefing that and saying, what's the other story about this too? You have to think about, just play out the tape a little bit with the shame because like, okay, if you feel so much shame, you feel so overburdened with these things that you have to keep doing the things and then it's going to cause some, either it's going to

cause some negative effect in your health or you're going to just be frustrated with your, you might just give up at a certain point. I've known people who just kind of completely walk away from all their responsibilities and that's, I mean, if you have to do that, you have to do that. But wouldn't it be better to find a way to address the problem before it got to that point? Yeah, so agree. I find myself, if I ever drop into a place

where it's like I'm doing something because I feel like if I stop doing it, I'm getting to feel a sense of shame. I'm like, oh, this is actually a moment I need to question. Like, I don't understand truly what's going on here, but there's something that's actually not functional for me. So I need to really dig into this and figure out what's going on. And sometimes you have to dig pretty deep to really figure it out. CB You bring up this concept of time blindness, this notion that we're horrible at really

understanding how we use our time and how fast or slow time moves. Take me a little bit deep into this and how it affects us also. And also maybe like how can we get better at it? Yeah, I mean, there's some really simple things that we can do. So time blindness is a condition that's initially associated with ADHD,

which I'm ADHD diagnosed and the more that I've learned about that, the more helpful it's been in my own life. But it's not exclusive to those who are ADHD or identify as neurodivergent or any other mental health condition. It's this thing where we have a poor perception of time. And like I said, I think almost everyone

has a poor perception of time. Some have it worse than others. But one of the reasons is we have this tendency of trying to add something. We want to just do one more thing. And so we chronically underestimate how much time it takes for transitions in particular, to go from one thing to another.

Or if I have to run an errand or go to a meeting in person or something, I think it's going to take 10 minutes. But it's really going to take 25 minutes if I factor in the traffic and the door-to-door thing and all that. And so this inevitably ends up causing a lot of stress because you're always running behind, right? And you're constantly running behind and your friends are kind of used to it at this point.

They're like, oh, so-and-so is always late, but it doesn't feel good, right? It doesn't feel good to you because you're letting people down, you're letting yourself down. A really simple thing, and this is gonna sound so dumb, but a really simple thing is just to allow yourself more time, give yourself 10 to 15 minutes

more than you think you need for every transition, and it will make your life so much better if you're not doing this already. Because as I said, you're often five or 10 or 15 minutes late for things, or things are scheduled too tightly. And now you have this little window and people sometimes worry about that. Like, but what am I going to do with that five extra minutes? You know, as if they have to fill it with something and like, this is a good problem to have. You wanted more time. Okay. Now you have given yourself more time. So I don't know, bring a book or something, you know, but just allowing

yourself, you know, 15 to 20 more minutes than you think you need will make a really big difference. Another thing I like to do is make time visible. Like, I'm a big fan of clocks and I have like multiple clocks around my space. And you know, if you think about casinos have no clocks because they don't want people to think about time. They want people to forget entirely about time. So maybe there's a place in your home like your bedroom or somewhere else where you want to be think about time. They want people to forget entirely about time. So maybe there's a place in your home, like your bedroom or somewhere else where you want to be free of time. Like if you don't keep your phone in your bedroom, like I respect that. But

I would say for pretty much everywhere else, the more you can make time visible, it's actually helpful. It doesn't mean you're going to be watching the clock. It just means you're aware of this is this needs to happen then I'm aware generally of what time it is. So it's a thing that time blindness concept can be this overwhelming negative force in our lives and it's pretty easy to fix it or at least counteract it to a certain degree. As you're describing that, I'm realizing I'm one of those annoying people who uses time blocking

in my calendar. You know, it's like all of my dedues are actually blocked out as time blocking in my calendar. It's like all of my DDo's are actually blocked out as time blocks in my calendar. And it's funny, because my team can see my calendar. And I think, I'm like, oh, I've been doing these things. I've been podcasting for 13 years. I should know how much time it takes to prep and then for the actual conversation itself

and then any posts I need to do and stuff like this. So it's blocked into my calendar. And there are a whole bunch of other things I've been doing for years that are blocked into my calendar. And there are a whole bunch of other things I've been doing for years that are blocked into my calendar. Here's the thing, and here's the amount of time that I estimate to do it. And then if you look at my calendar on any given week,

like on a Monday morning, when you look at all the things that have time blocked out, if you look back at that week on Friday afternoon, I've moved everything around because I was just horribly off on everything that I was doing. And this includes leaving blocks in my calendar with that, my calendar has a little thing

where there's a block, which is called my KF block, which is just keep free. So I'm trying to build time in just to accommodate the fact that I'm so terrible at estimating the things that are actually in there. To my frustration, I've never gotten better at it. I wonder if, as I think it could be two things, for someone in that situation, if they find themselves not wanting to do the things that

are blocked out or those keep getting pushed out, it's almost like, are those the right things, the right categories that should be planned in the first place. And if it's more like, no, I'm still doing those things, but I'm not doing it according to the time schedule, then it's maybe like a logistical issue of like, is this the right time to schedule this particular thing? Or does it take more time? Or does this other thing take more time or less time than I imagine? But yeah, I think improving in this way helps a good bit. Laura Vanderkam, I'm sure you know her as well, she writes on time a lot.

And I have a little bit different take than her for some things, but I also learn a lot from her as well. And she has, I think she calls it her Friday list, which is like all these like small things that kind of come up during the week. And rather than just trying to like fit them in through the day, she like saves them for Friday. And she has either the morning or afternoon kind of blocked off to

like let me just do all these little things and then she ends up feeling better kind of going into the weekend. No, that makes a lot of sense to me. I'm thinking also of things that you're working on where there are deadlines attached to them that aren't just your own personal deadlines, where there are dependencies that are based on you actually delivering a certain outcome on a certain time and date. We're both authors.

We have, in theory, we have deadlines that have to deliver on many issues. They're flexible deadlines, but yes. Yeah, yeah, it's publishing, and she's a little bit weird with that. But for so many people in work, it's like they're working on a team. They're working, they have a boss or a leader or a manager,

and they've gotta do all these different things. So I like the idea of, okay, if you really wanna feel like you're able to deliver on the promise of not just your own expectations, but other people's expectations, which are important, especially in the context of work, where you're making promises. Basically taking everything that you think,

and even if you think you're really good at estimating, saying like, what if I pad this 15 or 20%? And then just make the process so much more breathable for me. And then maybe also, some deadlines are real, as you said, but I think we tend to kind of operate, or a lot of people operate on only one speed, which is like everything is urgent.

Everything must be done now. And so I think it's helpful as well to question like what really is urgent, you know, and a lot of things that seem to be urgent, maybe could actually be done at any time, right? A time that's more convenient to you. And so if you get more specific on what are the real deadlines, I think that's helpful. And then also another another thing that has been helpful for me because I just keep adding stuff. It's like, if I have things to do for like half the day, it's not like I'm going to finish half the day and then just not do anything, right? I keep adding. And so for even people who are not self-employed, if you're doing any kind of knowledge work in a company, the list is endless.

There's always something to be done. So it's really helpful to decide for yourself what is enough, what is enough for today? What is enough for this project, for this week, for this thing? And decide that at the outset, what does done look like is a really helpful question. And then once you reach done,

you can just kind of take a moment to like recognize and celebrate that and maybe take a break and do something else. And, you know, if you so choose to go on to the next thing, that's great. But if you have decided this is what done looks like for me today, and I was really effective at doing it, and if you have the ability to like step away, then why not do that? Yeah, I mean, I guess the struggle with that for a lot of people, and I'm raising my hand here again, is that there's no such thing as done. So what you're inviting people to do is say, okay, so let's acknowledge the fact that for a lot of us, that's kind of true.

So then it's up to us to be the arbiters of intermediate dumb or done. I just said dumb. That was a Freudian slip. Well, there's no external done, I think is the thing. Right. So therefore, the task at hand is to create, is to decide. Because the external done doesn't exist, therefore I must step in and impose some structure on this, which is really imposing structure on myself so that I don't just continue to spin

the wheels. And then maybe I work all day and I actually end up feeling really tired. And I got a whole lot done in the beginning, but because I just kept going and didn't necessarily use the time well, you know, in the second half of the day, just for example, I ended up feeling not proud. I ended up feeling bad when I could be celebrating. Yeah, it's interesting also, because I think we've kind of been taking this up a little bit more in the context of work, but this is personal also, this is life. Like if you're a parent or a caregiver or a companion, you know, and you feel like you have somebody else's

well-being, their happiness, their health in your hands. And not knowledge work necessarily, but this is another one of those things where like, there's never gonna be a done. Like there's always, you know, you're on all the time. We feel like, I think there's another place where we feel like, okay, I can't just clock out. I can't actually decide that it's X o'clock today and that's got to be enough. That creates a tension. Yeah, sure. I still encourage people just to ask, you can still ask the question, what does done look like or what is enough in this situation? And maybe your answer is quite maximalist.

But you know, even for parents with like, you know, kids doing sports or school activities and things like, yes, it's important to show up, of course, do you always 100% need to show up for every one of them? And that's a question each parent can answer, or maybe the answer is yes. But I think some parents could say, no, I want to go to most of them, or these are the important ones that I need to be at. But also it's okay for my kid to kind of develop

on their own, perhaps. And maybe I can pull back, and maybe I'm going to 100% of the things just because I feel like I need to be doing that, and everything would be fine. There would still be great harmony in the household and on our relationships if I went to 80% or whatever the percentage is. Yeah.

Now that makes so much sense to me. And I feel like we often confuse as well time being physically present with time being like emotionally present. And we're like, I have to be, my body has to be in all these different places to make sure that I'm checking the boxes. But if that's just emptying you more and more and more, it's not like those around us who are depending on us don't pick up on that.

You know, and that's like, I don't really care if this person is here, because honestly, they're just kind of tuned out. You know, like just, it's better off if you just go do your own thing. And we kind of pretend that they can't feel those things. But the reality is they do. I often wonder if that does more harm than good

at the end of the day. Yeah, that's a great question. And we'll be right back after a word from our sponsors. You introduce this concept of time rules. Take me into this. Yeah, I think a lot of us have kind of unspoken or undocumented rules for ourselves of how we spend our time.

And sometimes these are rooted in responsiveness or availability. If we want to be a good employee or employer, then it's really important for us to return emails or other communication within a certain amount of time. And that's an example of a time rule. I always do this.

I always do this. This is like I have my communication cleared by the end of the day and so on. So time rules can be helpful or they can actually end up holding you back. And so I want to encourage people to kind of examine like what are the time rules that you currently live by? What might be some better time rules for yourself? How can you set some boundaries? Because again, if you don't do this, no one will.

I think that's maybe a common theme of, you know, some of the last couple of things we've been touching on is no one's gonna come along and help you have a better like nighttime routine. You know, no one's gonna come along and help you achieve whatever balance or alignment you need to have between the things you work on for other people, the things you work on for yourself,

your responsibilities at home and in your relationships, your hobbies. You have to kind of do this or no one's going to do it for you. So when it comes to time rules, just asking yourself, what might be helpful in that way? What are some rules I could make for myself? Are there one or two rules that you see being fairly common, fairly pervasive,

that actually exacerbate time anxiety that maybe we should revisit? I think it has something to do with that sense of urgency of operating only at one speed. I'm not sure how it kind of codifies in the sense of a rule, but like the demand of responsiveness, you know, the external and internal demand of responsiveness is something to it.

There's probably some more. That's the first thing I think of. Yeah, I think a lot of people feel pressure to respond to whatever messages are coming in within like a certain amount of time. And the context is probably different. If it's a friend, maybe you have a couple of hours. If it's a boss, maybe you have a couple of minutes.

But I feel like almost once you set that, it becomes an expectation. You're like, okay, so this is what I've done since the very beginning, I'm a couple months in now. So now it's become a norm. And if I break that, am I now sending a message to the other person that I'm in some way devaluing them? But I would imagine so much of that

exists just in our heads also, and nobody else is really paying attention. I mean, something I've learned from you, you know, is you often, I don't know if it's like perpetual, but you often have like an autoresponder on your email that's just like, hey, I'm't know if it's like perpetual, but you often have like an auto responder on your email that's just like, hey, I'm kind of in maker mode, as you call it, which is a great phrase. And, you know, I might not be able to get back to you.

And I mean, I understand not everybody can do the same thing, but it's, I think it's probably relieving to have that, right, because then the other person is like, oh, he's, you know, he might be able to get back to me or he might not be able to because of this. So you have kind of written a time rule there that I imagine has been helpful to you. And I imagine that there was a reason

why you did that in the first place, right? Because you were feeling kind of stressed. 100%. And that's been a persistent vacation message on my email. I don't even remember when I said it. It's probably close to a decade at this point. That's great, yeah. And you're right, it says like, you know, like, hey, I'm working on some deep projects now in maker mode.

Thank you so much. And then I give a bullet list of like eight different contacts. If you're reaching out about this, here's the person to talk to. If you're reaching about this, here's the person to talk to. So I don't want to leave people hanging. Right. But I also want to set expectations that like for 90, like a lot of the reasons that people might reach out to me,

it's actually not a me thing. They just don't know that yet. And also, even if it is, I'm constantly weighing, going back to that values part of the conversation, what's important to me here. It's important for me to respond to this person, oftentimes who I don't know, or to go deep into this project that I'm working on. I had an interesting experience around this on my sub stack actually early on. I was writing something about being a good person or whatever it may be and somebody said in the comments, well, if that's true, why haven't you responded to my direct message? That's great. And you said, I'm going to drop everything right now. Right, exactly. At first, I'm like, that was my inclination. I'm like, oh, I need to get in there

naturally. But there actually is a reason that I my inclination. I'm like, oh, I need to get in there naturally. But there's actually is a reason that I didn't respond to that person. There's a reason that I don't respond to almost anyone's DMs to me on any platform. And it's the same reason they have the autoresponder set up in my email. And that's how I made a decision a long time ago

that just because I am sharing ideas in a particular place doesn't mean that that's also a doorway back in to conversation with me. And it's not, I don't do it for mean reasons. I do it for self-preservation because I know what matters to me and I want to be able to address my attention to that. And eventually I actually, like I did respond to that person in the comments, not privately, because I wanted other people to see. So like a learning moment for other people. Exactly, exactly. I kind of came off my high horse and I'm like, all right, this is actually like, I completely

understand. Like, you know, like they're new in my community. They don't sort of like, and I was like, hey, like, thank you so much for this comment. I completely understand your question. And here's why I have this policy of actually not being interactive in any of my DMs. And they responded like, oh, that's actually incredibly helpful. Like, thank you, I totally get it and respect it. And I think sometimes we're afraid to set those rules because we're afraid of the response.

We don't think that people will understand why we're doing it. But I think sometimes we should give people the benefit of the doubt. For sure. I mean, so you've enacted another strategy that I recommend about putting a brick in your mailbox. Because we all have so many inboxes these days, I think that's part of the problem. And we can all get direct messages on every platform and such.

And so you can choose your availability. And you can choose which means and platforms and so on that you want to be able to be reached at, and which ones you're going to engage with and not. And then you can actually, with a lot of them, the platforms, you can actually just turn that feature off, you know, like with Substack, like you were new coming on Substack,

but maybe now you can go and actually just turn that off so people won't be able to message in the future and, you know, prevent any misunderstanding. So it's kind of like clearing stuff off your calendar. It feels really relieving when you do it, when you kind of like, oh, okay, I'm not going to have 17 different ways of being contacted. This way I can actually do a better job at the three ways that I'm prioritizing.

Yeah. And there are different rules. Like this is the rule that works for me. People may have very different rules. I mean, another friend of ours, Seth Godin, like I learned years ago, Seth will always respond and always respond fairly quickly, but I never expect more than five words from him, no matter how long my email is, and that's his rule. It doesn't matter how long the email is that I get, I'm going to respond with the fewest number of words I actually get the response across,

and that's not a disrespect thing, it's just this is the way that I function, and if you wanna be in conversation, that's great. Yeah, sure. You mentioned earlier in our conversation also something I want to dip back into. And we kind of joked about it a little bit, like in the context of mastery, but this idea

of doing things poorly as a strategy to help with time anxiety, I think is interesting. I want to know a little bit more about this. Yeah, I mean, I should give some credit to Casey Davis. She's a therapist and influencer. She wrote a book like How to Keep House While Drowning. And so I borrowed some of this concept from her about how, have this ingrained idea about excellence because that's what we're often taught. It's like, you must always do your best. And the reality is for all the things that we do in life, we're not always going to be able to do our best.

And so making choices with everything else, sometimes it's okay to do less than your best and it's okay, the world does not end. So we talked about laundry and dishes and things, but she also says, you know, if you're overwhelmed by the pile of laundry, you know, if you have like a large household and it's going to take like eight loads of laundry, don't try to do eight loads of laundry, do one load of laundry, right? Just get one

load of laundry going and that's going to help you feel better. It's going to help you start the process. Maybe later you'll go and do the rest of them, most likely. But it just kind of gets you into the action, but without necessarily having it being done to completion. For students, not every term paper is going to be perfect. Sometimes it's okay to just turn in less than your best work. Overall, you want to be doing your best work, but you're also feeling a lot of pressure about that.

If you're taking your kid to eat at McDonald's, you're not a terrible person. You probably don't want to take them to McDonald's every day. Like, that's not good, but eating something is better than not eating at all, right? So just this idea of like, how can we move through the world with a certain amount of ease and acceptance that we're not going to make perfect choices all the time, and it doesn't really matter when we get the laundry to done.

It needs to be done, but there is time for that. So do things poorly, and also don't be afraid to walk away from things that you're not enjoying or not working, right? Not everything you start needs to be finished, which is another value that's kind of ingrained from a young age for a lot of us is like you must finish everything, right?

And so even if you think about things like books or movies or like content media that you consume, I start a lot of movies and watch like 15 to 20 minutes and I just stop. And people always think this is weird. If I don't like it, there's something else, right? So I think it's just really powerful and it actually feels really good to like walk away from,

especially if you go to like a movie theater even, that's even bigger because you're not just like changing the Netflix channel, you're actually like, oh, I thought I was gonna like this movie, but I'm not really feeling it. I'm gonna walk away. movie theater even. That's even bigger because you're not just like changing the Netflix channel, you're actually like, oh I thought I was gonna like this movie but I'm not really feeling it, I'm gonna walk away. I think that actually feels really, really good. I love that the idea of not finishing things also

is part of that. I'm in the same boat, like I've really developed a habit of, you know, I read just enough of something or I listen to just enough of something to see if I feel like it's what I want and if it is I keep on. If it's want. And if it is, I keep on. If it's not, I'm just like, I'm good. I love actually taking it.

We've become just really regular library book people also because it makes I feel really good. I get to give a whole bunch of things a shot. I've just a little bit of time invested. That's it. And if it's not working for me, I recently picked up a book which is legendary. And so many people told me, this is fantastic. You've got to read it. You'll love this author. And I got 30 pages in and I'm like, I get it. And I just don't want to keep getting it. Yeah. It's not for you at this time. That's fine. And I also want to say,

the reason why you walk away from things, you do some things poorly is because there are other things that are so exciting that you do want to immerse yourself in. You know, I just read like this 1300 page trilogy, you know, that I read like slowly over the course of like six months. And I loved it. Like, I loved it so much. And I was like, Oh, I might not have found this, you know, if I had kept like slogging through this other book that I didn't really like, but everybody said was good, and I'm sure it was good, but it just wasn't for me. So I walk away from things so that I can invest in those experiences that are really amazing. Yeah, I so agree with that. Traffic light model, as we sort of wrap around

to some of the later ideas in time anxiety. Yeah, so another thing I had to learn about myself over the years is, partly because of the ADHD, but I have this tendency to hyper-focus on tasks and projects. When I'm really excited about something, then I will give everything to it, and then I'll also get kind of burned out, right?

And so I always knew I had the hyper-focus, but I didn't quite understand why over time I would develop this great resistance towards doing things that I actually liked doing. Like it was really hard for me to write several of my books because I kind of went a little bit too hard in the beginning. So understanding that hyper-focus really needs to be balanced with appropriate periods of rest kind of made all the difference for me. So it's not so much about trying to like even out.

I think it's actually really fun to go all in for stuff that you're excited about. But you need this kind of traffic light model. So it's like you think about your own fatigue and your ability to work. Most of us can only work about two to three, maybe four hours a day of actively focused cognitive work. We can do other stuff, but that's different.

So once you understand, oh, I've only got like two to three hours a day of this focused energy, how do I best direct it? And so the traffic light is like, okay, I've got a green light, I'm feeling good, I am focused, that's good. And then the red light is like, I really need to take a break, like a long break. And the yellow light is a little bit kind of tricky, right? Because you're like, oh, what do I do? And I think the best thing during that time

is you can do some other kinds of work. Maybe you can do some creative work, but that's not as cognitively focused. And so just kind of understanding, and it takes some practice, but noticing your own circadian and ultradian rhythms and when you can do the best kind of work. It's made a big difference in my life.

So hyper-focus combined with rest. Yeah, I love that. And that's a lesson that I've had to learn the best kind of work. It's made a big difference in my life. So hyper-focus combined with rest. Yeah, I love that. And that's a lesson that I've had to learn the really hard way also. And as you said, it helps you in part with an ADHD diagnosis or any form of neurodivergence. But also, this is almost everybody experiences some version of this.

This is the way the brain functions. It's interesting. Years ago when I was working on a book, the first book I wrote, I just completely burned myself out. I was doing exactly what you're talking about. I would work like 12 hour days, you know, like 11 o'clock at night, I'm on the couch, my eyes are barely open. I tell myself I'm actually writing,

but I stopped writing like six hours ago. You know, it was just, I was channeling Drek. I wasn't actually writing, but I wanted to say like I'm doing the thing. I'm devoted. I'm committed to this thing. After writing that, before I started into my next book, I somehow stumbled upon this Paris Review article of an interview of Ernest Hemingway. And he shared this thing that it completely changed the way I focus on writing. It ended up becoming one of my time rules in the context of writing, using sort of like your structure, which is that he said, stop writing at the end of each day,

not when you're done writing, but like when you actually know what the next sentence is, and you're excited to write it. And it was great because I wouldn't push to the point where I like it just forced myself to keep going until I was done. And then I was exhausted. And also, by ending kind of in the middle where I knew it was coming, it made me really excited to wake up the next day. And I knew that there was no resistance.

I would just hit the ground running. I couldn't wait to go and write the next sentence because I was already in it when my eyes opened and it just completely changed the nature of the experience. So it's kind of like combines these two different ideas of the traffic light model and creating these rules that are really effective for you. Yeah, you didn't leave yourself with a problem,

and so much writing is like problems to be solved and such. And you left yourself with like, here's the next path and you'll encounter problems later on. But to get on that on-ramp early, I think, is very effective. I think if people understand not all hours are created equal, I think that also makes a big difference. There are some hours in which you can probably

be two to three times as effective as other hours. And so if you can figure out what those are for you and try to be intentional about how you spend your time in those hours, then that's much better than just like, I'm gonna work for 12 hours a day or whatever. Yeah, and you brought that up just a little bit earlier in conversation, this notion of circadian and ultradian rhythms and there are sort of general assumptions

and general science that says most people do this type of thing best at this type of day. But I would imagine you would agree if one essay results may vary. You just gotta run the experiments yourself. Because I know I actually don't fit into those. Yeah, I would imagine you would be an exception, actually. Like, I don't know this actually about you, about what your ideal hours are,

but I would bet that you are kind of different than the norm. Yeah, weirdly when you're supposed to be like struggle the most to go into like deep creative mode and JAGS, like I tend to like do best there. And then those super early morning hours when supposedly like the best time you're in that kind of twilight weird, you know, like stuff just comes to you. I'm completely non-functional. Yeah. So you got to learn.

You got to figure it out. And Dan Pink has done a bunch of work in this area too. It's great. Yeah, and I think maybe that's one of the big things to take from this also is really just run the experiments. So as we zoom the lens out a little bit here, and we really just sort of like reexamine the concept of time anxiety. What's like an easy first, because people are probably listening to this, they say, yes, I quote, have this thing,

I experience it on a regular basis. You've just shared a whole bunch of different ideas to think about and potential things to try. Have you seen in your own experiment or talking to other people that there's sort of like a logical or easy first step into what can I do? I think the logical first step, we talked about giving yourself time,

but maybe that's actually the, that's like the 1.2 step. Maybe the step that actually comes first is noticing and just noticing how you spend your time and not just letting it pass by, but you don't, I mean, you could take it, you could have a journal, you could, you could be scientific about this, but I think you could just, just notice like, how do I spend my time? What am I doing today? How are the different sections of the day broken up? What do I do during transition times if I have a commute or if I go from one thing to another?

What does that feel like? And maybe as a second step, you could ask, what do I want more of and what do I want less of? And you could answer that however you see fit, right? It could be really big picture, or it could be very minute. What do I want more of in my life? What do I want less of? I think if you do these things,

you really don't have to do anything else. You could turn these into a bunch of active steps, but if you do these things, I think you will start living differently. I think if you're noticing how you spend your time asking what you want more of and less of, then you will just naturally and intuitively, without even putting more active attention on it,

start living differently and start feeling better. Love that. And it feels a good place for us to come full circle as well. So I have asked you this question a number of times over the years, but it's full circle as well. So I have asked you this question a number of times over the years, but it's been a chunk of years since I've asked you. So in this container of good life project, if I offer up the phrase to live a good life, what comes up? Yeah, I don't remember how I answered before, but what I think of now is paying attention. Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Hey, if you enjoyed this conversation, you'll also love the conversation we had with Cassie Holmes about managing and expanding time. You'll find a link to that episode in the show notes. This episode of Good Life Project was produced by executive producers, Lindsay Fox and me, Jonathan Fields. Editing help by Troy Young, Christopher Carter crafted our theme music and special thanks to Shelly Del Bliss for her research on this episode.

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