How perceived time pressure affects our lives

How we can change our perception of time to reduce stress, and increase productivity.

How often do we sense that cold rise of stress wash over us when we feel hurried or late?

Maybe you’re trying to brush your teeth, tie your shoelaces and feed the dog all at the same time. Or frantically work through your to-do list, only for more tasks to fall into your lap at an impossible rate.

Stress arises when we’re faced with challenging situations. And time pressure is one of biggest culprits there is. A recent study revealed that 58% of adults feel they “don’t have enough time“—that they are constantly rushing around.

I think that’s the key—a perceived lack of time. If you feel pressed for time on a daily basis, then you’re probably experiencing time poverty, and it’s a huge problem in society.

I certainly feel the pressure. My own life is filled with an unending array of commitments and interdependent responsibilities that seem to arise from the very substrate of modern life and entangle like a devilish cat’s cradle. Wondering how much of our stress comes from genuine time poverty versus perceived time poverty, I decided to try an experiment:

Can I change my perception of time, so I don’t constantly feel like it’s running out?

I came across a study recently, in which two groups of volunteers were given the same tasks in the same amount of time. One group, however, was artificially made to feel more rushed. Unsurprisingly, those under greater perceived time pressure performed much worse and reported more stress.

In real life, we do this to ourselves without the aid of scientists. A cup of tea takes 3 minutes to make, but if I’m feeling hurried, I try to speed up the process until it feels like a Formula 1 pit-stop—and inevitably, I begin to cut corners.

When we feel rushed, we make mistakes. We take risks. Neurologically, we disengage our higher faculties and rely instead on ‘automatic thinking’—a kind of shortcut mechanism intended for emergencies. Humans become cognitively impaired in proportion to their stress. Which explains why I knock over the milk bottle and spill milk all over the counter, giving myself another ten minute chore.

Making a cup of tea is one thing, driving is something else altogether.

According to one survey, one in five of us admit to speeding at least once a week (it doesn’t say how many others looked sheepish). We’ve all felt the pressure of being late for work, praying to the traffic gods for green lights. But there’s also that other, constant background pressure—not to waste a single second, even on the way home.

My wife drives long distances for work, and has learned from experience that a 25-minute journey varies by no more than 2 minutes, despite how it feels when stuck behind a slow vehicle. She witnesses drivers overtaking on blind corners—only to be caught up minutes later along the road. This is because, over the long run, traffic defaults to the slowest common denominator. It’s why we’re much more likely to encounter a cyclist going uphill rather than downhill.

Our judgement becomes impaired when under time pressure, and cannot be trusted. So this past month, I tried to stop rushing, and see if it helped. To do this I made three simple changes:

Change One:
I allowed more time before leaving the house. Actually mobilizing everyone five minutes earlier, to reduce that frantic, everything-needs-to-go-right pressure that makes driving miserable.

Change Two:
I allowed myself more time per task. Like Scotty in Star Trek, I began doubling my time estimates. So much stress comes from underestimating how long things take. I made a concerted effort to manage expectations—my own and others’—more realistically.

Change Three:
I deliberately slowed down. This was the hardest task of all. Sometimes, every fibre of my being wanted to rush on to the next thing. But since I knew that rushing doesn’t generally help, I kept telling myself: “it’s just perceived time pressure.“

The results?
After a few weeks, my stress has dropped noticeably. I generally leave the house on time. When driving, I can enjoy the scenery, or have proper conversations with my girls. And if I get stuck behind a lorry? No problem.

Choosing not to rush feels liberating. Household chores stop feeling like wasted time. I’m more likely to see them as experiences in themselves—not just barriers to the “next thing.” And if plans don’t work out? Well, there’s always tomorrow.

That’s the keystone to this whole process: letting go of the myth that we must make every single second count. We can’t be 100% efficient. Trying to be is exhausting. Yes, we have complicated lives, but there is an upper ceiling to what we can do with our time.

Of course, some time pressure is unavoidable. But if you adopt this mindset, and manage expectations, you can reduce a big chunk of it—and I’m sure you’ll really feel the difference.

Give it a try and let me know what your experiences are—I love to hear back from my readers.