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Do you suffer from time anxiety? Join the club! Most people in the developed world struggle with it, but it needn’t undo your writing. Read on to learn why…
I own four clocks and timers in an office that measures roughly 10 feet by 12. This is not an interior design choice. It’s a symptom.
I check the time the way other people check their phones for likes. I check it on my wrist and my laptop. I have a timer for my 25-minute pomodoros. And another one for my five-minute breaks. And sometimes I use a metronome to give me a ticking sound in the background to encourage myself to work faster.
If this sounds familiar, you may have time anxiety. It’s the low hum of worry that follows you around, whispering that you’re behind, that the day is escaping, that somewhere a more organized person is already three chapters into their novel while you’re still reheating your coffee.
I coach writers for a living, and I hear about time anxiety more than almost anything else. More than writer’s block, more than bad reviews. Certainly more than commas.
So let’s talk about it.
What time anxiety actually is
Time anxiety is the fear that you don’t have enough time, tangled up with the fear that you’re wasting the time you do have. It’s a two-for-one deal, and nobody asked for it.
It shows up in odd ways. You feel rushed on a Sunday afternoon with nothing scheduled. A deadline six weeks off can set your heart racing. And while brushing your teeth, you calculate exactly how many productive years you have left, then feel worse and floss badly.
The cruel joke is that anxiety about time is a spectacular way to waste it. Worrying about the ticking clock is itself a use of the clock. It’s like setting your house on fire because you’re afraid of the cold.
Name the story you’re telling
Time anxiety runs on a story, and that story is usually a lie.
The story says: I’m behind. Behind what? Behind whom? There is no cosmic schedule that everyone else received and you missed. Elizabeth Strout published her first novel at 43. Julia Child didn’t cook on television until she was 51. Nobody handed either of them a demerit for tardiness.
When you feel the anxiety rising, catch what’s running underneath it. Then argue with it, the way you’d argue with a friend who insists their haircut ruined their life.
Shrink the window
Here’s the advice I give writers, and it works for time anxiety too. Make your window of effort small.
I ask my clients to write for 15 minutes a day. Sometimes five. They look at me as though I’ve suggested they train for a marathon by walking to the mailbox. But the small window does something clever. It removes the pressure that feeds the anxiety.
You can’t fret about wasting a whole day when you’ve committed to only five minutes. Five minutes is not a marathon. It’s barely a sitcom scene. And once you’re in, you usually keep going.
The anxiety wants the task to feel enormous. Your job is to make it small enough to be silly.
Stop measuring against the highlight reel
You compare your Tuesday to someone else’s greatest hits. That author who wrote three books last year did not also do your laundry and sit through your dentist appointment. They didn’t answer the emails you’ve been avoiding since March, either.
We measure our messy behind-the-scenes footage against everyone else’s trailer. Of course we come up short. The comparison was rigged from the start.
Do one real thing
When the worry gets loud, action turns the volume down. Not frantic action. One real thing.
Answer the email or write the paragraph. Book that appointment you’ve been circling for a week like a nervous shark. Time anxiety hates being ignored, and it especially hates it when you calmly get on with your life while it’s mid-sentence.
You will not out-think this feeling. You beat it by moving.
Accept that you’ll never finish
You will die with items on your to-do list. So will I. So will everyone you admire.
This may sound grim, but it’s actually a relief. If finishing everything was never possible, then falling short isn’t a personal failing. It’s the standard human condition, and you’re in excellent company.
The goal is not to empty the list. The goal is to spend your hours on things that matter to you, and to notice you’re spending them.
A gentler relationship with the clock
I still own four clocks and timers. I’ve made peace with them. They tell me the time. They don’t tell me I’m failing, because I’ve stopped asking them that question.
Time anxiety shrinks when you stop treating every hour like a test you’re flunking. Pick the small window. Argue with the story, then do one real thing.
And if you ever catch yourself unnecessarily checking the time, laugh. Then get back to work. You have five minutes, and that’s plenty.
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