Why There Is Never Enough Time
Re-Examining and Challenging Your Relationship to rushing and hurrying
‘I always feel that there is never enough time’, someone shared in conversation with me today.
Many of us today think, feel and act as if in a hurry. It is both a source of productivity, success and security. And at the same time, a source of suffering, burnout and, perhaps, an unsatisfying life.
So, why do so many of us feel this way? And what can we do about it?
The Product of Our Culture
A theme woven through much of my work is that often the issue isn’t just about us. It can be easy to self-diagnose and pathologise - the problem must be me - but this is overly simplistic and reductive.
When we are a baby and a child our brain is like putty. Ready for imprinting. With big, wide, baby eyes we observe our care givers, our peers, our siblings - and we learn how to be. How to relate. How to act.
We also pick up habits and beliefs that have unconsciously been passed down through generations. Whether beliefs about our work - it is important to be successful - our each other - people are fundamentally cruel and hurtful. These messages, like unspoken myths echoing down the family tree, are projected onto the young and reinforced consistently and powerfully.
So, if you are feeling that you’ve never got enough time, whose voice is that actually? Who in your life conveyed that message to you?
The 1990’s saw the warp-speed shift to the internet, where suddenly every piece of information and global connectivity is accessible instantly. It was not only the case that time is money. But leaders suggested we ‘move fast and break things’.
And, perhaps just as importantly, this was a time where any item you desire could now be delivered to your doorstep with a single click.
Constantly Connected
As our relationship with technology has deepened, so has our seeming dependency. The advent of the 24 hour news cycle leaves us both satisfied and sad.
Satisfied that at some primeval level, we know what’s going on. We are informed. We are alert to threats, changes, gossip. And sad that we experience a constant state of despair, empathy, anger, hopelessness at terrors and injustices across the planet. Sadness at the scope, distance and perpetuity of the suffering, and our seeming individual inability to help, or hold in our thoughts, 8 billion others.
And, of course, social media. Whatever your poison is, the superficiality and transactionality of the communication you receive will often leave you feeling under-nourished at some level. These are fleeting, dopamine-riddled interactions. Designed carefully to leave you hooked and feeling worse about yourself.
In the entirety of any social media landscape, the more time you spend there the more lost and deficient you will feel. At one level, you may feel connected. And at another, you will feel further away from your enough-ness, your completeness. And you will have so much advertisement blasted into your consciousness you will seek quick solutions in promoted products. And you may well feel cripplingly addicted.
We are receiving a message that we need to be everything to anyone. The perfect partner and family member. A reliable, available friend. A productive and ambitious employee.
And we need to focus on our own wellbeing, and hold that same care for our community and environment. And we need to look good while we’re doing all this. It is the most perfectly logical thing for anyone to feel like there is never enough time. Because there isn’t.
What will often get lost here? You, your sense of self. Your identity. Your essence and your will to chart a course that connects to your purpose, calling and zest in life.
What’s to be done?
Much of this work takes deep, thoughtful enquiry. The sort of thinking that takes place on a good walk outside. Movement in nature, in my experience, often creates the conditions for inner awareness, realisation and wisdom. It takes, ironically perhaps, time away from your screen.
Or indeed, the thoughtful enquiry that takes place with ink and pen in a journal. That takes place with a good friend, therapist, counsellor or coach.
After all, might the rushedness, the hurry-up-driver, be the manifestation of a fear of death? Or the worry of an unfulfilled life?
This material, these messages that we collect, or are projected onto us throughout our whole life, takes some churning, some sifting, some digestion.
There are no quick fixes, top tips or hacks.
There is only you casting the spotlight of your consciousness back on your actions, your mindsets, your assumptions, your practices. To hold the care and curiosity to reflect backwards and wonder what happened to bring about this insatiable quality of hurried, rushed thinking and acting?
When it is brought into the coaching space, I find it helpful to wonder - when did you start noticing this thought process?
And when did it become the default way of thinking, the resting state?
This enquiry can take hours, days, weeks, months or more. It is careful, thoughtful work. One which looks inwards to look outwards.
I don’t think it is fair or helpful to try and ‘do away’ with this zeal. This urgency. This passionate energy. It is valuable at times and, hey, we’ve evolved it for a reason.
But the key piece of work is to create enough choice, autonomy and intention within you. To bring a sense of balance and self-compassion.
So that you are not controlled, possessed or over-powered by this energy. But you are able to have enough objectivity and awareness that you can choose when and where to work with it, and when to lean into a different mindset or attitude.
Making time might not just be about blocking time in your calendar. It might be exploring what you’ve been saying ‘yes’ to when you really wanted to say ‘no’. It might be challenging the voice you hear in your consciousness that worries there is more work to do. It might just be figuring out the most compassionate thing you can do for yourself, your body and your soul. And prioritising that for a little while.
This choice, this autonomy, sits at the heart of what I think really good relational work is about. And perhaps why Socrates offered that the ‘unexamined life is not worth living’.
It is why I do what I do, in my calling and vocation. And it is, after all, why my newsletter is titled Slowing Down
There is perhaps an inner choice that each of us has about habits, beliefs or mindsets.
Do I want to change this? Examine this? Am I scared about what I might find? Perhaps even, do I believe I can change?
I leave the last words to Carl Jung, who offered, ‘until you make the subconscious conscious, it will direct your life and you will call it fate’.
Support for Organisations
Much of my work at the moment involves working with organisations to support and develop their leaders, teams - and their coaches. Facilitating a more conscious approach, with greater presence.
In 2025 I’ll continue to supervise and train teams of internal coaches, and support a leadership culture more grounded in a coaching approach.
If you would like to explore my help with training, support, advice - or indeed some coaching - for your leaders, teams or coaches, book in a call here
Support for Individuals
And if you have a sense that I can be of help to you at an individual level, through some mentoring, coaching or supervision, feel welcome to get in touch and start a conversation.
My email - george@edgeofcoaching.com
Lastly, if you have found this post insightful, please share it as widely as you care to.
With Gratitude,
George
Hi George, this is one of the most helpful, insightful and validating articles I've read. Crucial for me personally, but I think everyone needs to see it. I'd love to share and will credit you. Thank you!