It’s super common for time to be a stressor. It feels like there’s just not enough time in the day! There’s that looming deadline and it seems like if there were just one or two more hours in the day, everything would be so much more manageable.
You’ve probably had most of these thoughts cross your mind at one time or another:
“How am I ever going to fit this into my schedule?”
“I didn’t get this done and I was supposed to.”
“My whole day is ruined now, because I took too long working on this.”
“I just don’t have enough time to do everything I need to.”
Time is a resource, and we can develop a scarcity mindset surrounding it. When someone develops a time scarcity mindset, they can become almost obsessive over the thought that there isn’t enough time. This, in turn, makes them operate from a place of fear.
When your main source of motivation to get something done is fear, you’re going to try to rush through it. You’re just not going to give the task the proper attention it needs, and it won’t live up to the quality of work you usually do.
When we’re busy and feel we need to rush through our work we might also resort to multitasking. When we’re focusing on multiple things we don’t give either of them the proper amount of time and attention. Multitasking also tends to take longer than doing each task separately, because you can’t really get into a groove and hit your stride with either task!
If you struggle with time scarcity, you may want to try this thought…
“Everything happens right on time.”
Believing everything happens right on time saves us from doing careless work when we rush or multitask. Believing everything happens right on time gives ourselves grace, which we could all use a little more of. And, believing everything happens right on time helps us lose some of our pride and admit that sometimes things don’t work out the way we originally wanted because in reality there's other ways things could work out even better.
Next time you find yourself thinking the same rehearsed thoughts about the lack of time, consider how your experience would change if you believe everything happens right on time.