Why It Always Feels Like You Don’t Have Enough Time (And What To Do About It)

Have you ever felt like you don’t have enough hours in the day to accomplish everything you want to accomplish? It would be weird if you didn’t. Most of us wish that we had more time to spend as we choose, and nearly all of us have felt the pain of having no room in our schedule for one of our top priorities.

Why does it always feel like you don’t have enough time? And what can you do about it?

You’re Not Organizing Your Time

Many people feel like they never have enough time simply because they’re so disorganized with their time management. If you just jump from one responsibility to the next, without making lists or organizing your time expenditure, you’ll always feel like you’re running behind.

The solution to this is to introduce an organizational system for your time management. For example, your Office 365 Calendar can dramatically change how you see, manage, and deal with required events in your personal and professional life. There are many different possible approaches to type management, but any system of organization is better than no system of organization.

You’ve Taken On Too Much

Some people always feel like they’re running out of time because they take on too much. They happily volunteer for overtime, they commit to many different family and friend responsibilities, and they try to juggle several different hobbies on top of everything else.

While there’s no shame in being ambitious, you have to understand that you have a limited amount of time to work with. If you pack your schedule too fully, you’ll always feel behind.

You Wake Up Too Late

Too many people wake up at the last possible moment to allow themselves just enough time to get ready for work. If you work from home, you may have even more leniency in this area, sleeping until the literal last minute before you have to be online.

It’s important to get good sleep, but waking up too late can make your day feel rushed and compacted. Instead, consider getting up at least a couple of hours before you’re obligated to go to work; taking the time to eat breakfast, exercise, or meditate could help the rest of your day feel more spaced out and easier to handle.

You’re Multitasking

Multitasking doesn’t work. More than that, it can actually harm you in measurable ways. But many of us do it anyway because it feels like we’re being more productive when we do it. Working on multiple things at the same time means you’re going to complete each task less efficiently and with less focus then you could have, ultimately requiring you do you spend more time fixing your mistakes we’re doing the task properly.

The solution is simple. Stop multitasking.

You’re Letting Time Slip Through Your Fingers

Throughout the day, there are probably many periods of time when you let the minutes slip through your fingers without doing anything productive. For example, you might mindlessly scroll through your Facebook feed or get distracted by an interesting TV show in the middle of your day. Each interaction like this may only cost you a few minutes, but over the course of the day, they can add up to hours.

The best way to stop this is to raise your awareness of how you’re spending your time. Start tracking your time habits; after a few days, you’ll begin noticing unfortunate patterns that need to be corrected.

You Desire Too Much

In Buddhist philosophy, desire is the root of all suffering. Whether or not you buy into that idea, it’s clear that feeling frustrated at your lack of time may stem from the list of desires that you have. If you find yourself constantly imagining all the new hobbies you would start, all the new people you would meet, all the new places you would visit, and all the new projects you could tackle, you’ll inevitably feel like there’s not enough time. If your desires are too numerous or too strong, even several lifetimes would never be enough to accomplish everything.

The solution to this is to let go of your desires and try to be satisfied with less. That’s a tall order, and something that could take years for you to figure out.

You’re a busy person. You have a full schedule and a full plate of different priorities. But at the same time, you might be exaggerating when you think to yourself that you don’t have enough time in the day.

As we’ve seen, most people suffer from bad habits and inaccurate interpretations that lead them to this conclusion. Sometimes, a handful of simple changes to your habits and your approach to scheduling or all it takes to help you feel like you have time in abundance.