Is your time too tight?
Last newsletter we challenged the habit of thinking of time as a resource that can be wasted or taken from you. Time-as-resource is not the only belief that may be limiting the quality of your life. Have you ever noticed how you may be thinking of time also as a container—and you’re the one in it?
Think about the language that comes up:
The timing is really tight
Are we going to make it in time?
This was a big week
That was a long day
There is no room in my schedule
Can you squeeze me in?
If you slow down, you can see that treating time as a container can just as easily worsen your life as treating it like a resource. If time is a container, then you must fit yourself into that container. What if you start thinking the container is too small? You may have the experience some executives have of “no breathing room” in your schedule. This does not bode well for how you’ll experience your days. Time becomes like those big conical-shaped machines you slide into for an MRI. Many people get quite claustrophobic lying in one of those machines, as it ticks away. It’s an apt metaphor for what we can bring about because we think we’re cramped by our own schedules. And what happens if the container “stretches on forever”? Have you ever had the experience of being trapped in an “endless” meeting?
Time as a container can seem like a tunnel that we cannot escape from, or a space we find suffocating.
As with time-as-resource, time-as-container is a habit of mind, not reality. Time only exists to us because we think about it. Recall from the last newsletter that when we are truly engaged in our life we stop thinking about time as something external.
This is another way to lead life, which is to see that time is inside you—you’re the container. How, as the container, do you shape your time? Will you wait impatiently for an “endless” meeting to be over, or will you make the meeting more interesting? Will you rush to squeeze in more tasks today or will you slow down to immerse yourself wholeheartedly in the ones you already committed to?
Imagine what can happen for you in your life, professionally and personally, when you come to see time as an experience you shape. Imagine waking up each day and making the clock a tool for coordinating your availability with people, not a source of fear. Imagine dropping the sense of helplessness, and seeing yourself as resourceful enough to make time an expression of who you are, not the other way around. If that sounds attractive to you—and you want to rework your current relationship to time, then why not schedule a 20 minute introductory call to learn more about how coaching can help.
To shaping your time the way you want,
Tom and Team