Time Anxiety: Tips to Reduce It

April 25, 2023

SHOW NOTES:

Full transcript here: Permission to be Messy Episode 14

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Episode Transcript

14: Time Anxiety: Tips to Reduce it
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Welcome to episode 14 of Permission to be Messy. I'm your host, JoAnn Krall and today I'm talking about time anxiety. What is timing, anxiety?

Time anxiety refers to the feeling of stress or worry. That arises from a person's perception of time, either regarding the past, the present or the future. So we can feel time, anxiety daily and our daily tasks feeling like we don't have enough time to get things done. We can have time anxiety around the future thinking about, decisions that we're making today are they going to affect our deadlines in the future? Are we going to get things done?

Or it could just affect our whole life, thinking about, How short life is and are we going to have enough time to get all the things that we want to get done and actually, what is the meaning of our life? Are we going to make an impact ?

So sometimes time anxiety is triggered. because we have a fear of failure or we're missing out on opportunities. Maybe we just have an overall lack of control over our time. Or like I said before, we have these urgencies to meet deadlines or goals, and then it can also stem from, mental health conditions like OCD or just general anxiety.

I don't remember when I first heard this term, but I was like, oh, yes, yes, yes. I've always suffered from time anxiety from, I think from a very young age. and for me, I always had this fear of being late. I always want to be on time. I never want to feel rushed. that's always been a piece of me.

And then when my parents passed away, within weeks of each other. I started to have that. oh my goodness life is short. How much time do I have left? I want to get all this stuff done.

And I had to spend a lot of time working on myself, to stop that worry of, what if there no tomorrow because none of us know how long we actually have. So what are some, tips that we can use to reduce this anxiety? I'm not sure that. We can never really let go of it. I'm sure. certain situations are gonna make it creep back in. just life changes. once we get something under control, something else new can come.

So these are some tips to help you reduce it, and manage it and maybe overcome it especially in certain situations.

So the first thing is to prioritize tasks. when you have your tasks list out in order of importance. You'll tend to focus on the more important ones more. It doesn't mean you're not going to work on the other tasks, but

Making sure that you're putting most of your time towards the higher priority tasks will help. I know for me. I do this, I do prioritize everything, but sometimes I have to work on the lower priority items because of my energy level, or I just don't want to face the important things just yet. So sometimes just movement doing something, working on the easier things will help me drive me towards tackling the other stuff.

When I have a lot of low priority items kicking around things that just don't have to be done, they're very much a distraction for me. In that situation alone, they become high priority because if I don't get rid of them, they're distracting me from the high priority items.

I don't know if that made sense, but that's the way my brain works.

So the second thing is to set realistic goals. Many of us will give ourselves these goals and these deadlines that just aren't realistic. We don't give ourselves enough time, which then, we start to panic when we're not making these deadlines. And these were ones that we make for ourselves. Obviously there are deadlines that we need to meet, that other people have expectations of us or their specific things that just have to be done.

So in those cases, we need to manage our time. So if you go back to episode seven, I do talk about time management there.

The third tip I have is to practice mindfulness. And this doesn't mean just doing meditations because not everybody can sit and meditate. Although if you're somebody that says I can't meditate because my brain is moving 90 miles a minute. Just keep doing it. Let your brain go. Let your brain do it and just sit, but just don't do anything but sit during that meditation.

Sometimes guided meditations will help. Sometimes just simple breathing exercises.

I personally love to do box breathing, where you inhale for four seconds. You hold for four seconds. You'd let go for four seconds. And then you hold again for four seconds. And doing that in a sequence.

I have to be mindful of it though, because counting is, something that I do because of my OCD. So when I do box breathing, it's almost like saying, you know what, I'm going to use you OCD because four is my number.

So for me, it's like making lemonade out of lemons using my four number that I need to do when I'm. When I'm really grappling with my OCD. And turning it into a breathing exercise.

The fourth thing is you may need to seek support whether it's through a trusted friend or family member, or even a therapist.

They can give you further strategies. Cause I am not an expert in anxiety and I know I've talked about this before,

I will be bringing in experts to talk about anxiety, OCD. and ADHD.

And so finally I want to talk about, anxiety around time management. I definitely have this,

I really want you to know though that this is such a common thing. So if you do suffer from time anxiety all the time, or just from time to time, you're not alone and, sometimes time management tips and tricks in themselves can actually cause anxiety for us.

It's really essential that you find what works for you and it may be a combination of things and it may be that some days, one technique will work for you and then other days they won't, or

may be they work for you on a certain project, but they don't work for you on something else.

So take some time today and think about, what you're doing currently to manage your time. What you've tried in the past, what hasn't worked for you as most important, because you need to really understand why it hasn't worked for you. if you ever want to chat about that, just reach out. I always have in the link of the show notes.

A free call that you can do with me. It's no obligation. It's just to jumpstart you and your organization process. But if you ever want to say, Hey, I've tried this method and I can't figure out why I just can't make it stick. We can talk about that.

There's many reasons why certain time management hacks, don't like that word, but there's certain time management tips or, strategies that work for some people don't work for others.

And then I have an action plan program where you will identify all that you need to do. Identify the obstacles, the resources that you need prioritize everything and it gives you a plan to go forward and you can use this for physical organizing but you can also use it for time management.

or, The tasks that you can need to get done. I'm going to put a link to that in the show notes as well. There is a coupon code in there that is only going to be good until April 30th, 2023. That brings you back to the beta pricing of $37. So check that out. or book a call with me. I'd love to chat with you if, if you do.

I resonate with this time anxiety and you're not sure. what might work best for you? Book that free call with me.

So I'm wishing you much productivity, peace, prosperity and the permission to be messy. Thanks for listening.

Time Anxiety: Tips to Reduce It

SHOW NOTES:

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