Principles for Breaking the Limits of Time

Keys to optimal productivity, creativity, and well-being

During peak experiences there's no awareness of time flowing. The better your productivity and sense of well-being, the less you're aware of time passing. Ask periodically: "Am I timelessly involved in what I'm doing?" (See Excerpts from Results in No Time and Linear vs. Timeless Views.)

Your sense of time (SOT) is conceptual, and measures clock time. Your feeling of time passing (FTP) is a feeling, and measures how much you're resisting what you're doing. (See Three Faces of Time and the Spectrum of Time Management.)

There is no inherent limit to what can be accomplished in a given period of clock time.

Pressure doesn't seem to be built into certain jobs; it seems to be added to neutral situations because of our attitude, perspective, or confusion about values and goals. The pressure we feel is directly proportional to how much we're resisting what we're trying to get done. Our typical deadline perspective is that we're in the present looking off toward the distant future where there's a deadline, and the deadline is relentlessly closing in on us. (See Where Does Time Pressure Come From?)

In general, in order to experience time pressure, and anxiety, you have to have a position separate from what you're doing or observing. The greater the separation, the stronger the FTP, whether it's 'moving' quickly or slowly. If there's no psychological time, there's no conflict or separation at all. (See Clock Watching.)

The feeling that there isn't enough time, or that work is endless or overwhelming, or that time is out of control or is going too fast (or too slowly), is always accompanied by a linear view of time, and is never part of a timeless, peak perspective. (See Qualities of Deadline Pressure Scenarios.)

The linear view of time is a "waste of time" because it involves the (perhaps subtle) seeking of fulfillment elsewhere (most often in the future) as well as a division of awareness among past, present, and future. Our planning usually involves this linear view with its thinking about the future room we've created separate from the present room. (See Different Perspectives of Planning.) Seeing and feeling separate future rooms within the flow of time is an impediment to creativity, productivity, and well-being.

Our typical way of estimating time is based on the concept that each and every unit of clock time holds the same limited capacity for accomplishment. (See Different Perspectives of Planning.)

Most conventional time management (CTM) seminars cannot resolve our problems with time because they don't touch the limits built into the linear time paradigm (LT) that usually underlies CTM. (See Two Paradigms: Performance & Well-Being Depend on the Paradigm of Time.) "While with these [CTM] methods you may alleviate some time pressures temporarily, because your state of being is not affected, you never generate any deep or lasting changes in how you view and interact with time. . . . Ultimately you return to your old ways, and with new frustration." (Hunt and Hait) Lasting, substantial control and use of time, to increase health, productivity, and creativity, is possible only if we understand time, our attitudes toward it, and how it works--and this is not usually taught in CTM seminars. Rather than CTM's focus on what we want to do, inner time management (ITM) gives methods to optimize the moment-by-moment way we relate to, or the extent to which we are involved in, our current activity. By finding the peaceful, yet most productive 'zone' at the center of our whirlwind of activities, we can transform our feelings of time flowing--including overwhelm, time pressure, anxiety, and boredom. For people in all but the most routine jobs, learning and consistently using both CTM and ITM methods is both valuable and necessary in order to continually improve our lives both personally and professionally. By combining ITM practices with CTM, we can not only avoid the empty drivenness that readily accompanies CTM with its usual focus on results, but also open up new levels of performance and fulfillment that are simply unavailable with CTM alone.

A feeling of time passing (FTP) is created when you avoid a negative feeling. (See How Our Sense of Time Flow is Created.) All of your FTP is due to repressed emotions. Without a FTP everything would be spontaneous and effortless. When you experience time, try to find out what you're feeling, and focus directly on the feeling.

How your FTP is created/strengthened:

• Rather than being aware of some feeling, the feeling is repressed or suppressed and you lose a measure of confidence.
• The throat/neck constricts a bit, a subtle anxiety is created, and you become aware of time passing either more quickly or more slowly.
• Energy is diverted to the head as you think about how you'll be happier when you get a desired object, find or improve a relationship, or complete a task or project. The linear view of time is experienced, with time flowing from past to present to future. Your attention is divided among the three times.

Procrastination begins with some kind of negative feeling that distracts us from what we're doing. Procrastination is a really good example of how we create or intensify our sense of time. (See Turning Procrastination Around.)

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