I often find myself so busy, with little time to spare, that if I sat on a calendar review commission, I would argue for a 14-month year. My many responsibilities demand constant attention – communication, meetings and occasional travel. Modern life feels like a never-ending race against time and some of us are losing.
The once-clear boundary between work and personal time has dissolved with digital communication – laptops, smartphones and always-on platforms. We now operate in an environment of endless tasks, sustained by the illusion of productivity. Technology, meant to save time, often consumes what little we have outside work. Instead of switching off, we remain constantly connected – overwhelmed, rushed and mentally cluttered.
On top of our professional and work-related obligations, we face constant, repetitive notifications that demand attention, turning a minute of scrolling into 30-minute sessions that interrupt focus and reduce efficiency. We lose concentration and, despite appearing busy, often become highly inefficient. Time is not merely leaking; it is flooding out of a limited reservoir.
Because we cannot expand the year by even a minute, many of us feel compelled to manage each day’s precious hours, setting boundaries that sometimes strain social norms of interaction. When managed well, time becomes a tool that improves productivity, reduces stress, and provides a greater sense of control. The focus shifts from doing everything to doing what matters – less about constant busyness, more about being purposeful with our time.
Being human means recognising that too much of anything – even time management – can be harmful. I once created a strict timetable, choosing to respond to text messages only twice daily instead of throughout the day. One morning, I woke to an unread message warning me not to eat at a funeral because the cook had dropped her handkerchief in the rice pot – an important message I read too late to be useful. There is a downside to over-optimisation: we begin to feel guilty when resting. In trying to control time too tightly, we start to treat it as an enemy rather than a resource. Like pilots following a flight routine, life becomes a checklist – yet every action requires balance to ease this self-inflicted pressure.
We cannot create more time, but we have the option of wisely managing our time. We must, however, leave room for resting, for the unexpected while also permitting ourselves, occasionally, to become the humans we were before the digital revolution.
