May 28, 2025 • 24 mins
Do you ever get the sense that no matter how much you do, you’re still running out of time? Like there’s something you should be doing, but you can’t quite figure out what it is?
In this episode of How I Work, we sit down with New York Times bestselling author Chris Guillebeau to talk about a feeling so many of us carry but rarely name: time anxiety. From guilt over unread emails to the pressure to leave a legacy, Chris shares the practical strategies that helped him stop chasing time - and start living with more calm and clarity.
In this episode:
- What time anxiety is—and why so many of us feel it without even realising
- How Chris let go of the pressure to leave a legacy
- A weekly “time decluttering” ritual that can clear your calendar
- Why “just prioritise better” is the worst advice
- The bold email strategy Chris swears by (even if it ruffles a few feathers)
- Why leaving 10–15 minutes of buffer time between commitments can change everything
Key Quotes:
“You have to decide for yourself what is enough.”
“It’s not about being an email ninja - it’s about understanding what matters.”
Connect with Chris
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Just prioritize better. It's kind of like, don't worry. It's
not a very helpful thing to say to people, right,
Like if someone.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Is worried, you just don't don't worry. Oh I'm not
worried now, right, you know.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
My guest today is New York Times best selling author
CRUs Gillibo, and today I am so excited to be
talking to him about his new book, Time Anxiety, and
the brilliant strategies that he has developed to help us
break free from time guilt, deadline dread, and chronic rushing.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
If we say the time is our most precious resource,
like we should be even more attentive, you know, to
like cleaning up the calendar and removing things where we can.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Tell me what is email? Bankruptcy?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
So I've got all of these messages, you know, in
my in box. It's not like a huge number. I
mean some people that have thousands. But sometimes things just
get too far behind and it's not really going to
be that helpful. If somebody wrote three months ago needing
something urgently but just dealing with whatever they were asking about,
they don't clearly don't need it now.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
So I just.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Welcome to how I work a show about habits, rituals,
and strategies for optimizing your date. I'm your host, doctor
Amantha imber.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Chris, you have written a book about time anxiety, which
is like, when I picked it up, I thought, Wow,
that sounds like an interesting concept, but what is it?
So can you tell me what is time anxiety?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I think of it as the fear of running out
of time while simultaneously feeling really uncertain or hesitant over
how to spend the time that we have, and so
this kind of manifests in different ways and such. But
I noticed when I was just writing the book and
talking with people about it, not even formally, but informally,
(01:53):
I was just be chatting with people and they would say,
what are you doing. I'm like, oh, I'm working on
this thing called time anxiety. And there would be almost
a very very strong visceral response to it. And so
many people would say, like, I don't know what it is,
but I have that Like that's me, right, And so
there's lots of different ways that people experience it, but
I think generally speaking, it's like just some uncertainty or
(02:14):
hesitation or even dread around how we spend our time
and maybe I'm running out of time or I'm too
late for something.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
How was it showing up in your life when you
first started working on this book.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I would say it was the overarching problem of my life.
It was something that affected me just all the time.
I thought about it all the time, and I constantly thought, oh,
I'm too late, I feel regret over choices I've made or.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Have not made, or it's just like a whole lot
of things. Right.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
It's like, I feel like there's so much I want
to do. And you know, a lot of like books
and tools and systems are all about how to optimize
and to delegate or outsource or like to get rid
of all the things that you don't want to do.
And I think that's helpful, you know, to a point.
But for me, it was like, there's a lot of
things I want to do, Like there's still things like
(03:05):
there's more that I want to do than I'm able
to do, clearly, and that's ultimately how it is for.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
All of us.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
But I just felt like, there's this phrase that I
use in the book, and it's not even my own phrase.
This is something that I heard from a lot of
people over and over, but once I heard it, I
was like, oh yeah, I latched onto it. It was
there's something I should be doing, but I don't know
what it is, Like there's something that I right now
I feel like I should be doing something or maybe
working towards something, but I can't quite tell what it is.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It's this vague sense of discontent.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I completely and utterly relate to that. I was thinking
about you, like I was reading the book and like
it's just so great. I love what you have created.
I was wondering, like about Chris. Now when you wake
up the book is written all the concepts that hopefully
absorbed into your bloodstream, Like do you still experience time anxiety?
(03:58):
And is it showing up in a different way for you?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I mean, I haven't solved all the problems of the world,
or even all my own problems, for sure. I think
what I have is a lot more understanding and insight,
you know. I started writing the book out of a
place of discontent and dissatisfaction, and not quite like hopelessness,
but a little bit of despair, you know, or a
(04:20):
little bit like creeping towards despair. And I think I
ended the process, which is like a two year process
of research and writing. I ended it feeling much more helpful.
So that's something you know, that's not nothing, as.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
We could say, definitely, what do you do now? Like
if you wake up and you're thinking about the day
ahead and you're feeling that sense of, oh my goodness,
I just feel like I've got so much to do
and I don't know how I'm going to fit it
in this day. What have become your go to habits
(04:54):
or rituals or strategies When you wake up with that
sense of I don't know how I'm going to get
it all done today, you're.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Feeling a little twitchy. At least that's how I feel sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I mean there's like two different directions there, and the
first one is like, so there are two types of
time anxiety, and one is existential of like, you know,
time is running out in my life. And for that
I kind of learned to reframe my thinking around legacy.
I used to be into this concept of like leave
a legacy, and that was like an operating principle or
(05:24):
a driver for me, and I've kind of let go
of that, like to a large degree, just because I
like so much about legacy is outside of our control,
and it's also a lot of pressure, you know, whereas
if we can focus on living well, like whatever that
looks like, and that still includes like being of service
to others and hopefully trying to build something and you know,
(05:44):
all those things, it just it feels a lot better
to me. So that's like the bigger picture. But then
you know, to your point about you wake up and
it's like, oh what do I do? I'm still somewhat
kind of triaging, which I think a lot of people
are like, Oh, I've got all this stuff and this
goes here and this goes there. But maybe I just
understand a little bit more that I have to create
(06:04):
constraints and limitations. One of the key parts of the
book is like you have to decide for yourself what
is enough, you know, for any particular day or any
particular project, or you know, whatever cycle that you think on.
And so I have to understand that there are some
limitations out there, like I have a limited amount of
cognitive attention and there's only so many things I can do,
(06:27):
So I have to somehow set these constraints and live
with them. And I think what I was trying to
do before, So I'm still goal oriented. I still like
to work on things like I haven't become like a
complete minimalist or a monk, you know, but I think
like understanding, Okay, there's only so much I can commit to,
and I try to avoid those situations I guess in
the first place of like feeling over committed. And if
(06:48):
I do get into them, and it's like, okay, what
can I do to kind of like unpack myself back
to a place of more stability as opposed to how
do I get all of it done? You know, because
that's probably not going to happen.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
There's a practice that you talk about in the book
where you recommend looking I think at the week ahead
in your calendar and asking yourself, what are just two
things that I could take out? Tell me about, like
if you were to do that today looking ahead. We're
recording this on a Tuesday. Tell me how you go
through that process.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I call it time decluttering, because you know, everybody's familiar
with like tidying up your office or your home or
your space and like getting rid of objects that don't
bring you joy or whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
And I think that's good and helpful.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
But you know, if we say the time is our
most precious resource, like we should be even more attentive,
you know, to like cleaning up the calendar and removing
things where we can. So what would it look like
for me? I guess I would just scan forward a
little bit and see, you know, is there anything I
was added to that I don't need to be added to.
Is there anything that I have set up that I
(07:55):
can say, actually, this could be handled another way. It's
not only work things too, it's also like other life things.
If I'm not as excited about this thing, do I
have to do it? And it's just kind of like
some questions that I ask.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
I know that something else that you do is you
arrive ten to fifteen minutes early before things, which I
could relate to. Because I'm an early person, I.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Can see that. I imagine that.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, so often I'll arrive five minutes early. But when
I read that, I thought, oh, ten to fifteen minutes early.
I can see why that is appealing, because if you
aim to arrive five minutes early, it's very easy for
traffic to be unpredictable and for that five minutes early
to become five minutes late. And I get very stressed
out when I'm late, like in anordinate amount of stress
(08:44):
considering how little it will affect the other person. But
arriving ten to fifteen minutes early for appointments, is this
something that you do religiously, Like when you look at
your diary, are you always that early? What does that
look like?
Speaker 1 (08:58):
No, I'm not always that early and been late to things,
and it's very stressful. I think actually most people find
it stressful to be late, even those who are chronically late.
And we all like have those friends you know who
are like always late to meet or maybe we are
that friend sometimes. I don't think anybody likes it. I
think it does create a disproportionate amount of stress, and
(09:18):
it's a pretty simple way to fix it, you know,
but it's hard for people. It's hard for people to
like leave ten to fifteen minutes earlier. It's not so
much about always arriving ten to fifteen minutes early for something,
it's just adding that buffer of time between transitions, like
giving yourself more time for transitions.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think is something that can.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Bring a lot of relief to people, like a disproportionate
amount of relief. And so if you're feeling like a
high amount of stress for always being late. Here's a
high amount of relief giving yourself more time, and I
think people are often reluctant to do it because they
feel like, oh, I just I can get one more
thing done, you know, and it's really hard for them
to let go of that one more thing. But if
(09:58):
you're always being ten to fifteen minutes late, and then
you start giving yourself ten to fifteen minutes more time,
you're just going.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
To be on time. You're actually not going to be
like super early. Right.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Most people don't go from being like a chronically late
person to being always fifteen minutes early?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Are you chronically early?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I try to be and I always have things to do, right,
I guess that's the thing. Like you, Like you have
your phone, I have my bag, I usually have my laptop.
I have a book, Like I have papers and things.
So it's not like I'm worried about what will I
do if I get to the restaurant ten minutes before
the person I'm supposed to meet. There's always some way
to occupy one's time.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
We will be back with Chris soon, and when we're back,
we will get into how Chris sorts his priorities when
everything feels important and the bold email strategy he uses
to fight time anxiety even if it ticks people off,
and why he's completely fine with that. If you're looking
(10:57):
for more tips to improve the way you work live,
I write a short weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've
discovered that have helped me personally. You can sign up
for that at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha dot com.
Email is such a time waster for so many people,
(11:22):
and I feel like there are quite a few interesting
ways and innovative ways that you've thought about just how
people can contact you and spending less futile hours in
the inbox. Tell me what's been most impactful for you
in terms of reducing the time anxiety with email.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I feel like I.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Should first say that, you know, we talked about like
what was my greatest problem or what was that? What
was I experiencing? You know, as I came to the
research project behind this book, guilt about my email and
my inbox was just so powerful and so overwhelming. It
was probably the thing I felt the most guilty about
for you, because I would begin almost every sentence of
(12:04):
every email with like it's like I'm so sorry for
the delay in reply, you know, it's like that's just
like my introduction, that's just could be just templated. And
then I noticed I was either very fast or very
very slow and getting back to people, like I would
try to be fast, but if I didn't respond the
same day, it was going to.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Be days or weeks I would and I would just
keep thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
It's not like I had forgotten, you know, it wasn't
out of sight, out of mind, but I would feel
this great resistance, you know, to going back to it.
So I feel like what a lot of systems and
productivity methods do is they're providing like some tools and things,
but they're not really addressing the psychological problems behind why
we have resistance towards email, for example, or why it's
(12:48):
hard for people to be on time, or many other
examples that we could talk about. And so for me,
some of it is just kind of grace and understanding,
like I'm not going to be like a great email ninja.
There's a lot of people that I'm probably not going
to be able to get back to. Like I used
to really prize responsiveness and equate responsiveness with excellence, and
(13:10):
maybe I've just kind of shifted in that because if
I am always responsive, that means I'm not doing other things,
and I want to be writing books and you know,
creating projects and doing other work. So maybe that's the
first thing. It's just understanding like I can't do it all,
creating little buckets of time where I'm like, Okay, I'm
just going to go in and spend twenty minutes and try.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
To respond to as much as possible.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
But I don't have like like have you seen these
Like well, of course you have like the auto responders
people always have, like I only check email between you know,
four fifteen and four twenty five PM or whatever, but
I'll get back to you.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Then people that use those, I feel like they never
actually get back to you during that time.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
They've set this up for themselves and some like they
think this is going to be you know, a great
thing's true, right, but that doesn't actually work for them.
And they're also the people that tend to be intrusive.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
What's funny is like they they need something from you
and they're reaching out to you and then you actually respond,
but then you get kind of told off. They're like, oh,
I shouldn't emailed to you right now, because this is
not your email hours.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
So that's another observation.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
But I guess I've just tried to kind of get
away from being a perfectionist about it.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
You wrote about in time anxiety. I think, did you
call it email bankruptcy? And I want to know if
you still do this, if you did this in January?
Tell me what is email bankruptcy?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, So I've got all of these messages, you know,
in my inbox. It's not like a huge number. I
mean some people that have thousands, but when they get
to those large numbers, it's not that they have thousands
of individual messages written to them, Like they're just copied
on a bunch of stuff, you know, so that you
can kind of go through and clean out. But so
it's not a huge number, but there's there's often like
I don't know, between fifty and one hundred messages that
(14:49):
I just don't respond to and they actually need something
from me, And those are the ones that I feel
really bad about. And so weeks go by and months
go by, and just you know, thinking about what do
I do about this? And so sometimes I have like
a to dread list where I'm like what are all
the things that I dread that I'm dreading right now.
I'm going to write that down and try to spend
some time about that. But with emails specifically, like sometimes
(15:12):
things just get too far behind and it's not really
going to be that helpful, you know, for me to
like if somebody wrote three months ago needing something urgently,
I mean I could write and apologize, but just dealing
with whatever they were asking about, they don't clearly don't
need it now They've solved their problems some other way.
So I just like every January, it's like I just
archive everything that's in the inbox that I haven't responded to,
(15:34):
and I start over, and then I tend to do
a much better job at least for a while, because
things are all like fresh and clean. And so I
think I used to like actually like send out a
note to people like, hey, so sorry I might have
missed your message, send it again. But now I just
don't do that because people don't need another message on
their end, and if I do that, that's just going
to have more things coming back to me. So I've
(15:55):
just tried to like, let's just try to move on.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So how many years have you done the January email bankruptcy.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
For probably like five or six years now.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
And has there ever been a negative consequence?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Probably there's probably some negative consequences that I don't know about.
That's the other thing, right, Yeah, I was going to
ask you, actually, what do you think about this? Does
this stress you out?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
You know?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Do you seem like a person who is like super
responsive and always on the ball and I respect that
so much? Are you like I would never do something
like that.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
It's funny when I think about my inbox and I
preface this because I use Superhuman and I feel like
if I were to use Outlook or Gmail, and I've
used both, they stress me out a lot because everything's
just everywhere and the interface is ugly compared to Superhuman.
So I'm never in box zero, but I know that
(16:49):
feeling of having emails that are just sitting in your
inbox for weeks or months and they just feel too
hard to respond to. So, you know what has worked
for me, I've got an amazing Ea gem And the
longer we've been working together, the more she knows my voice.
She can write like me. She understands the context of
(17:12):
most of what's going on in my inbox, and so
I would say she does so much for me, but
I reckon the single most valuable thing she does for
me to remove email stress is she will notice the
emails that are just lurking in my inbox and have
been there for a while, and she will draft a response.
And I could have done that, it probably would have
(17:33):
taken me less time than JEM. But the fact that
she has done that work where there's been some kind
of a mental block, and I obviously read the draft
and will make any edits that I need to, and
then hitting send on that email feels so good. So
I haven't really thought about this as one of the
things that has solved a lot of the email anxiety
that I feel, but I think that that is probably
(17:55):
the thing that has had a very very big impact.
The other thing that has had a big impact on me,
and I remember this advice. I imagine you've come across
Laura may martin Google's executive productivity advice. I feel like
she's sort of in the same sort of area as us,
and she said to me, you know, stop trying to
follow the classic productivity advice where just be in your
(18:17):
in books two or three times a day, and I
have been guilty of giving that advice and getting a
lot of pushback from clients, and I think far more
practical advice is just closing your inbox for a couple
of hours a day. Otherwise, leave it open, procrastinate as
much as you want, be as responsive as you want.
But for me, I just know I'm going to in
(18:38):
the mornings close Superhuman. It will be not open probably
between the hours of eight am and eleven am thereabouts,
and that serves me really well. But otherwise I think
I'm guilty of responding to quickly because obviously the quicker
you respond, the more email you're getting back at you
(18:58):
very quickly.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Okay, yeah, chat, Well you can use the you know
superhuman has to send later feature?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yes, right, so you can.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
You can be really responsive, but just say send two
hours later, right or whatever you know.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yes, which I'll often do if I'm emailing after hours
because I actually I try not to, but I also
don't like to be seen emailing after hours because I
feel like it's just it's creating interruptions for other people
at times when I don't want to. But yeah, I do.
You send later a lot, but not during the day.
That's a good tip. I'm going to take that now.
I know that productivity advice that you hate is someone
(19:31):
saying just prioritize better or just you know, get your
priorities straight. And prioritization is something that I think about
quite a lot, and I've tried different strategies. I would
love to know, like what works for you, because I
think a big part of time anxiety is not knowing
what matters the most and where our time is best spent.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
So what do you do, Chris, Yeah, just prioritize better.
It's kind of like don't worry.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
It's like it's not a very helpful thing to say
to people, right, Like if someone.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Is worried, you just don't don't worry. Oh I'm not
worried now, right, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
And when it comes to priorities, it's like it's also
this very big nebulous concept. It's like who's priorities? Like
I'm prioritizing, but what if I have competing priorities? And
what if I have priorities in this part of my
life or this part of my work, And it like
doesn't everything.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Cross over one way or another?
Speaker 1 (20:25):
And how do I make these decisions like where is
the like prioritized button, you know, like that we'll just
be like, oh, okay, here it is. You know, everything
is perfectly ordered, right. So let's see your question was what.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Do I do?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
I think something that is really intuitive for most people,
like for like almost all of us, if we just
stop and ask ourselves what matters and you can say, like, what.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Matters right now? What matters to me right now?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Like when you do that, I think just about everybody
I can identify, Oh okay, there's like a few things
that come to mind in terms of what matters right now.
And so you might think of people in your life.
You might think of something that you're working on. There
might be some recurring task or some urgent task that
you're like, oh, actually, I really do need to actually
get back to this person about this thing or make
(21:20):
a decision about this. But you probably won't think of
too many things. When you do that, You're going to
think of like, you know, three to five most likely.
And I think that is a help just a very simple,
helpful way to understand like what are the priorities of
the moment. And it's probably also helpful to kind of
think long term and like what do I want from
my life? And how do I structure that? You know,
(21:42):
all those other kinds of things. But I guess if
you're like in a state of distress or even just
like how do I spend my time today or tomorrow?
I think asking yourself like what matters will be a
very helpful starting point. And then as you go forward,
you kind of notice like what is bringing you joy
and what is bringing you good energy versus what is
draining your energy? And I think that's also a good
(22:04):
direction to pay attention to. It's not meant to be
like a woo woo thing. It's meant to be like
actually very grounded in logic and analysis and in what
we really want to do and find you know, meaning
and purpose in.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Do you have any annual or monthly or weekly rituals
around just reminding you to go what matters? What matters
this week? Where should my time go? Do you have
anything like that in place?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I do have like an annual review that I've been
doing for like twenty years, so I've changed that a
few times over the years, but it is like the
better part of a week of thinking through like what
was the year look like? The past year and what
are some goals for next year based on different categories
and such. But it's a little bit less intensive than
it used to be because now I am more thinking.
(22:52):
I'm not really in the moment because I am kind
of future minded, but it is more like I know
more or less what I want to be doing most
of the time, and it's really only when I get
off track that I have to like refocus a bit.
And also I like projects like you. I like to
write books and so other projects like books. I host
an annual event, and so with these kinds of things,
(23:13):
it has like a built in timeline for it, and
I like that. Actually I like knowing, Okay, seasonally or cyclically,
here's what I need to be doing, and here's how
I can prioritize those things.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
If you've enjoyed everything Chris just shared, then I have
good news. This was just part one of a two
part chat, and next week we're going to be releasing
part two. So do make sure that you hit follow
or subscribe to How I Work wherever you're listening to
this podcast. So I hope you liked this chat with
(23:45):
Chris today, and my goodness, I have personally lapped up
everything he has said. I just love how practical his
advice is, and personally, I've even started to put some
of these strategies into practice since recording this epis. If
you want to learn more about Chris, I highly recommend
checking out his book Time Anxiety, and the links to
(24:07):
that are in the show notes. See you next week
for part two. If you like today's show, make sure
you hit follow on your podcast app to be alerted
when new episodes drop. How I Work was recorded on
the traditional land of the warrangery people, part of the
Cool And Nation
Just prioritize better. It's kind of like, don't worry. It's
not a very helpful thing to say to people, right,
Like if someone.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
Is worried, you just don't don't worry. Oh I'm not
worried now, right, you know.
Speaker 3 (00:11):
My guest today is New York Times best selling author
CRUs Gillibo, and today I am so excited to be
talking to him about his new book, Time Anxiety, and
the brilliant strategies that he has developed to help us
break free from time guilt, deadline dread, and chronic rushing.
Speaker 1 (00:30):
If we say the time is our most precious resource,
like we should be even more attentive, you know, to
like cleaning up the calendar and removing things where we can.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Tell me what is email? Bankruptcy?
Speaker 1 (00:40):
So I've got all of these messages, you know, in
my in box. It's not like a huge number. I
mean some people that have thousands. But sometimes things just
get too far behind and it's not really going to
be that helpful. If somebody wrote three months ago needing
something urgently but just dealing with whatever they were asking about,
they don't clearly don't need it now.
Speaker 2 (00:57):
So I just.
Speaker 3 (01:04):
Welcome to how I work a show about habits, rituals,
and strategies for optimizing your date. I'm your host, doctor
Amantha imber.
Speaker 2 (01:17):
So.
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Chris, you have written a book about time anxiety, which
is like, when I picked it up, I thought, Wow,
that sounds like an interesting concept, but what is it?
So can you tell me what is time anxiety?
Speaker 1 (01:31):
I think of it as the fear of running out
of time while simultaneously feeling really uncertain or hesitant over
how to spend the time that we have, and so
this kind of manifests in different ways and such. But
I noticed when I was just writing the book and
talking with people about it, not even formally, but informally,
(01:53):
I was just be chatting with people and they would say,
what are you doing. I'm like, oh, I'm working on
this thing called time anxiety. And there would be almost
a very very strong visceral response to it. And so
many people would say, like, I don't know what it is,
but I have that Like that's me, right, And so
there's lots of different ways that people experience it, but
I think generally speaking, it's like just some uncertainty or
(02:14):
hesitation or even dread around how we spend our time
and maybe I'm running out of time or I'm too
late for something.
Speaker 3 (02:21):
How was it showing up in your life when you
first started working on this book.
Speaker 1 (02:27):
I would say it was the overarching problem of my life.
It was something that affected me just all the time.
I thought about it all the time, and I constantly thought, oh,
I'm too late, I feel regret over choices I've made or.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Have not made, or it's just like a whole lot
of things. Right.
Speaker 1 (02:43):
It's like, I feel like there's so much I want
to do. And you know, a lot of like books
and tools and systems are all about how to optimize
and to delegate or outsource or like to get rid
of all the things that you don't want to do.
And I think that's helpful, you know, to a point.
But for me, it was like, there's a lot of
things I want to do, Like there's still things like
(03:05):
there's more that I want to do than I'm able
to do, clearly, and that's ultimately how it is for.
Speaker 2 (03:09):
All of us.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
But I just felt like, there's this phrase that I
use in the book, and it's not even my own phrase.
This is something that I heard from a lot of
people over and over, but once I heard it, I
was like, oh yeah, I latched onto it. It was
there's something I should be doing, but I don't know
what it is, Like there's something that I right now
I feel like I should be doing something or maybe
working towards something, but I can't quite tell what it is.
Speaker 2 (03:31):
It's this vague sense of discontent.
Speaker 3 (03:34):
I completely and utterly relate to that. I was thinking
about you, like I was reading the book and like
it's just so great. I love what you have created.
I was wondering, like about Chris. Now when you wake
up the book is written all the concepts that hopefully
absorbed into your bloodstream, Like do you still experience time anxiety?
(03:58):
And is it showing up in a different way for you?
Speaker 1 (04:00):
I mean, I haven't solved all the problems of the world,
or even all my own problems, for sure. I think
what I have is a lot more understanding and insight,
you know. I started writing the book out of a
place of discontent and dissatisfaction, and not quite like hopelessness,
but a little bit of despair, you know, or a
(04:20):
little bit like creeping towards despair. And I think I
ended the process, which is like a two year process
of research and writing. I ended it feeling much more helpful.
So that's something you know, that's not nothing, as.
Speaker 3 (04:33):
We could say, definitely, what do you do now? Like
if you wake up and you're thinking about the day
ahead and you're feeling that sense of, oh my goodness,
I just feel like I've got so much to do
and I don't know how I'm going to fit it
in this day. What have become your go to habits
(04:54):
or rituals or strategies When you wake up with that
sense of I don't know how I'm going to get
it all done today, you're.
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Feeling a little twitchy. At least that's how I feel sometimes. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (05:03):
I mean there's like two different directions there, and the
first one is like, so there are two types of
time anxiety, and one is existential of like, you know,
time is running out in my life. And for that
I kind of learned to reframe my thinking around legacy.
I used to be into this concept of like leave
a legacy, and that was like an operating principle or
(05:24):
a driver for me, and I've kind of let go
of that, like to a large degree, just because I
like so much about legacy is outside of our control,
and it's also a lot of pressure, you know, whereas
if we can focus on living well, like whatever that
looks like, and that still includes like being of service
to others and hopefully trying to build something and you know,
(05:44):
all those things, it just it feels a lot better
to me. So that's like the bigger picture. But then
you know, to your point about you wake up and
it's like, oh what do I do? I'm still somewhat
kind of triaging, which I think a lot of people
are like, Oh, I've got all this stuff and this
goes here and this goes there. But maybe I just
understand a little bit more that I have to create
(06:04):
constraints and limitations. One of the key parts of the
book is like you have to decide for yourself what
is enough, you know, for any particular day or any
particular project, or you know, whatever cycle that you think on.
And so I have to understand that there are some
limitations out there, like I have a limited amount of
cognitive attention and there's only so many things I can do,
(06:27):
So I have to somehow set these constraints and live
with them. And I think what I was trying to
do before, So I'm still goal oriented. I still like
to work on things like I haven't become like a
complete minimalist or a monk, you know, but I think
like understanding, Okay, there's only so much I can commit to,
and I try to avoid those situations I guess in
the first place of like feeling over committed. And if
(06:48):
I do get into them, and it's like, okay, what
can I do to kind of like unpack myself back
to a place of more stability as opposed to how
do I get all of it done? You know, because
that's probably not going to happen.
Speaker 3 (07:01):
There's a practice that you talk about in the book
where you recommend looking I think at the week ahead
in your calendar and asking yourself, what are just two
things that I could take out? Tell me about, like
if you were to do that today looking ahead. We're
recording this on a Tuesday. Tell me how you go
through that process.
Speaker 2 (07:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
I call it time decluttering, because you know, everybody's familiar
with like tidying up your office or your home or
your space and like getting rid of objects that don't
bring you joy or whatever.
Speaker 2 (07:32):
And I think that's good and helpful.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
But you know, if we say the time is our
most precious resource, like we should be even more attentive,
you know, to like cleaning up the calendar and removing
things where we can. So what would it look like
for me? I guess I would just scan forward a
little bit and see, you know, is there anything I
was added to that I don't need to be added to.
Is there anything that I have set up that I
(07:55):
can say, actually, this could be handled another way. It's
not only work things too, it's also like other life things.
If I'm not as excited about this thing, do I
have to do it? And it's just kind of like
some questions that I ask.
Speaker 3 (08:07):
I know that something else that you do is you
arrive ten to fifteen minutes early before things, which I
could relate to. Because I'm an early person, I.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
Can see that. I imagine that.
Speaker 3 (08:21):
Yeah, so often I'll arrive five minutes early. But when
I read that, I thought, oh, ten to fifteen minutes early.
I can see why that is appealing, because if you
aim to arrive five minutes early, it's very easy for
traffic to be unpredictable and for that five minutes early
to become five minutes late. And I get very stressed
out when I'm late, like in anordinate amount of stress
(08:44):
considering how little it will affect the other person. But
arriving ten to fifteen minutes early for appointments, is this
something that you do religiously, Like when you look at
your diary, are you always that early? What does that
look like?
Speaker 1 (08:58):
No, I'm not always that early and been late to things,
and it's very stressful. I think actually most people find
it stressful to be late, even those who are chronically late.
And we all like have those friends you know who
are like always late to meet or maybe we are
that friend sometimes. I don't think anybody likes it. I
think it does create a disproportionate amount of stress, and
(09:18):
it's a pretty simple way to fix it, you know,
but it's hard for people. It's hard for people to
like leave ten to fifteen minutes earlier. It's not so
much about always arriving ten to fifteen minutes early for something,
it's just adding that buffer of time between transitions, like
giving yourself more time for transitions.
Speaker 2 (09:35):
I think is something that can.
Speaker 1 (09:36):
Bring a lot of relief to people, like a disproportionate
amount of relief. And so if you're feeling like a
high amount of stress for always being late. Here's a
high amount of relief giving yourself more time, and I
think people are often reluctant to do it because they
feel like, oh, I just I can get one more
thing done, you know, and it's really hard for them
to let go of that one more thing. But if
(09:58):
you're always being ten to fifteen minutes late, and then
you start giving yourself ten to fifteen minutes more time,
you're just going.
Speaker 2 (10:05):
To be on time. You're actually not going to be
like super early. Right.
Speaker 1 (10:08):
Most people don't go from being like a chronically late
person to being always fifteen minutes early?
Speaker 3 (10:15):
Are you chronically early?
Speaker 1 (10:16):
I try to be and I always have things to do, right,
I guess that's the thing. Like you, Like you have
your phone, I have my bag, I usually have my laptop.
I have a book, Like I have papers and things.
So it's not like I'm worried about what will I
do if I get to the restaurant ten minutes before
the person I'm supposed to meet. There's always some way
to occupy one's time.
Speaker 3 (10:35):
We will be back with Chris soon, and when we're back,
we will get into how Chris sorts his priorities when
everything feels important and the bold email strategy he uses
to fight time anxiety even if it ticks people off,
and why he's completely fine with that. If you're looking
(10:57):
for more tips to improve the way you work live,
I write a short weekly newsletter that contains tactics I've
discovered that have helped me personally. You can sign up
for that at Amantha dot com. That's Amantha dot com.
Email is such a time waster for so many people,
(11:22):
and I feel like there are quite a few interesting
ways and innovative ways that you've thought about just how
people can contact you and spending less futile hours in
the inbox. Tell me what's been most impactful for you
in terms of reducing the time anxiety with email.
Speaker 2 (11:40):
I feel like I.
Speaker 1 (11:40):
Should first say that, you know, we talked about like
what was my greatest problem or what was that? What
was I experiencing? You know, as I came to the
research project behind this book, guilt about my email and
my inbox was just so powerful and so overwhelming. It
was probably the thing I felt the most guilty about
for you, because I would begin almost every sentence of
(12:04):
every email with like it's like I'm so sorry for
the delay in reply, you know, it's like that's just
like my introduction, that's just could be just templated. And
then I noticed I was either very fast or very
very slow and getting back to people, like I would
try to be fast, but if I didn't respond the
same day, it was going to.
Speaker 2 (12:22):
Be days or weeks I would and I would just
keep thinking about it.
Speaker 1 (12:25):
It's not like I had forgotten, you know, it wasn't
out of sight, out of mind, but I would feel
this great resistance, you know, to going back to it.
So I feel like what a lot of systems and
productivity methods do is they're providing like some tools and things,
but they're not really addressing the psychological problems behind why
we have resistance towards email, for example, or why it's
(12:48):
hard for people to be on time, or many other
examples that we could talk about. And so for me,
some of it is just kind of grace and understanding,
like I'm not going to be like a great email ninja.
There's a lot of people that I'm probably not going
to be able to get back to. Like I used
to really prize responsiveness and equate responsiveness with excellence, and
(13:10):
maybe I've just kind of shifted in that because if
I am always responsive, that means I'm not doing other things,
and I want to be writing books and you know,
creating projects and doing other work. So maybe that's the
first thing. It's just understanding like I can't do it all,
creating little buckets of time where I'm like, Okay, I'm
just going to go in and spend twenty minutes and try.
Speaker 2 (13:31):
To respond to as much as possible.
Speaker 1 (13:33):
But I don't have like like have you seen these
Like well, of course you have like the auto responders
people always have, like I only check email between you know,
four fifteen and four twenty five PM or whatever, but
I'll get back to you.
Speaker 2 (13:44):
Then people that use those, I feel like they never
actually get back to you during that time.
Speaker 1 (13:49):
They've set this up for themselves and some like they
think this is going to be you know, a great
thing's true, right, but that doesn't actually work for them.
And they're also the people that tend to be intrusive.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (13:59):
What's funny is like they they need something from you
and they're reaching out to you and then you actually respond,
but then you get kind of told off. They're like, oh,
I shouldn't emailed to you right now, because this is
not your email hours.
Speaker 2 (14:09):
So that's another observation.
Speaker 1 (14:10):
But I guess I've just tried to kind of get
away from being a perfectionist about it.
Speaker 3 (14:16):
You wrote about in time anxiety. I think, did you
call it email bankruptcy? And I want to know if
you still do this, if you did this in January?
Tell me what is email bankruptcy?
Speaker 1 (14:27):
Yeah, So I've got all of these messages, you know,
in my inbox. It's not like a huge number. I
mean some people that have thousands, but when they get
to those large numbers, it's not that they have thousands
of individual messages written to them, Like they're just copied
on a bunch of stuff, you know, so that you
can kind of go through and clean out. But so
it's not a huge number, but there's there's often like
I don't know, between fifty and one hundred messages that
(14:49):
I just don't respond to and they actually need something
from me, And those are the ones that I feel
really bad about. And so weeks go by and months
go by, and just you know, thinking about what do
I do about this? And so sometimes I have like
a to dread list where I'm like what are all
the things that I dread that I'm dreading right now.
I'm going to write that down and try to spend
some time about that. But with emails specifically, like sometimes
(15:12):
things just get too far behind and it's not really
going to be that helpful, you know, for me to
like if somebody wrote three months ago needing something urgently,
I mean I could write and apologize, but just dealing
with whatever they were asking about, they don't clearly don't
need it now They've solved their problems some other way.
So I just like every January, it's like I just
archive everything that's in the inbox that I haven't responded to,
(15:34):
and I start over, and then I tend to do
a much better job at least for a while, because
things are all like fresh and clean. And so I
think I used to like actually like send out a
note to people like, hey, so sorry I might have
missed your message, send it again. But now I just
don't do that because people don't need another message on
their end, and if I do that, that's just going
to have more things coming back to me. So I've
(15:55):
just tried to like, let's just try to move on.
Speaker 3 (15:58):
So how many years have you done the January email bankruptcy.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
For probably like five or six years now.
Speaker 3 (16:05):
And has there ever been a negative consequence?
Speaker 1 (16:09):
Probably there's probably some negative consequences that I don't know about.
That's the other thing, right, Yeah, I was going to
ask you, actually, what do you think about this? Does
this stress you out?
Speaker 2 (16:17):
You know?
Speaker 1 (16:18):
Do you seem like a person who is like super
responsive and always on the ball and I respect that
so much? Are you like I would never do something
like that.
Speaker 3 (16:25):
It's funny when I think about my inbox and I
preface this because I use Superhuman and I feel like
if I were to use Outlook or Gmail, and I've
used both, they stress me out a lot because everything's
just everywhere and the interface is ugly compared to Superhuman.
So I'm never in box zero, but I know that
(16:49):
feeling of having emails that are just sitting in your
inbox for weeks or months and they just feel too
hard to respond to. So, you know what has worked
for me, I've got an amazing Ea gem And the
longer we've been working together, the more she knows my voice.
She can write like me. She understands the context of
(17:12):
most of what's going on in my inbox, and so
I would say she does so much for me, but
I reckon the single most valuable thing she does for
me to remove email stress is she will notice the
emails that are just lurking in my inbox and have
been there for a while, and she will draft a response.
And I could have done that, it probably would have
(17:33):
taken me less time than JEM. But the fact that
she has done that work where there's been some kind
of a mental block, and I obviously read the draft
and will make any edits that I need to, and
then hitting send on that email feels so good. So
I haven't really thought about this as one of the
things that has solved a lot of the email anxiety
that I feel, but I think that that is probably
(17:55):
the thing that has had a very very big impact.
The other thing that has had a big impact on me,
and I remember this advice. I imagine you've come across
Laura may martin Google's executive productivity advice. I feel like
she's sort of in the same sort of area as us,
and she said to me, you know, stop trying to
follow the classic productivity advice where just be in your
(18:17):
in books two or three times a day, and I
have been guilty of giving that advice and getting a
lot of pushback from clients, and I think far more
practical advice is just closing your inbox for a couple
of hours a day. Otherwise, leave it open, procrastinate as
much as you want, be as responsive as you want.
But for me, I just know I'm going to in
(18:38):
the mornings close Superhuman. It will be not open probably
between the hours of eight am and eleven am thereabouts,
and that serves me really well. But otherwise I think
I'm guilty of responding to quickly because obviously the quicker
you respond, the more email you're getting back at you
(18:58):
very quickly.
Speaker 1 (19:00):
Okay, yeah, chat, Well you can use the you know
superhuman has to send later feature?
Speaker 2 (19:04):
Yes, right, so you can.
Speaker 1 (19:05):
You can be really responsive, but just say send two
hours later, right or whatever you know.
Speaker 3 (19:09):
Yes, which I'll often do if I'm emailing after hours
because I actually I try not to, but I also
don't like to be seen emailing after hours because I
feel like it's just it's creating interruptions for other people
at times when I don't want to. But yeah, I do.
You send later a lot, but not during the day.
That's a good tip. I'm going to take that now.
I know that productivity advice that you hate is someone
(19:31):
saying just prioritize better or just you know, get your
priorities straight. And prioritization is something that I think about
quite a lot, and I've tried different strategies. I would
love to know, like what works for you, because I
think a big part of time anxiety is not knowing
what matters the most and where our time is best spent.
Speaker 1 (19:52):
So what do you do, Chris, Yeah, just prioritize better.
It's kind of like don't worry.
Speaker 2 (19:58):
You know.
Speaker 1 (19:58):
It's like it's not a very helpful thing to say
to people, right, Like if someone.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
Is worried, you just don't don't worry. Oh I'm not
worried now, right, you know.
Speaker 1 (20:06):
And when it comes to priorities, it's like it's also
this very big nebulous concept. It's like who's priorities? Like
I'm prioritizing, but what if I have competing priorities? And
what if I have priorities in this part of my
life or this part of my work, And it like
doesn't everything.
Speaker 2 (20:23):
Cross over one way or another?
Speaker 1 (20:25):
And how do I make these decisions like where is
the like prioritized button, you know, like that we'll just
be like, oh, okay, here it is. You know, everything
is perfectly ordered, right. So let's see your question was what.
Speaker 2 (20:38):
Do I do?
Speaker 1 (20:40):
I think something that is really intuitive for most people,
like for like almost all of us, if we just
stop and ask ourselves what matters and you can say, like, what.
Speaker 2 (20:52):
Matters right now? What matters to me right now?
Speaker 1 (20:58):
Like when you do that, I think just about everybody
I can identify, Oh okay, there's like a few things
that come to mind in terms of what matters right now.
And so you might think of people in your life.
You might think of something that you're working on. There
might be some recurring task or some urgent task that
you're like, oh, actually, I really do need to actually
get back to this person about this thing or make
(21:20):
a decision about this. But you probably won't think of
too many things. When you do that, You're going to
think of like, you know, three to five most likely.
And I think that is a help just a very simple,
helpful way to understand like what are the priorities of
the moment. And it's probably also helpful to kind of
think long term and like what do I want from
my life? And how do I structure that? You know,
(21:42):
all those other kinds of things. But I guess if
you're like in a state of distress or even just
like how do I spend my time today or tomorrow?
I think asking yourself like what matters will be a
very helpful starting point. And then as you go forward,
you kind of notice like what is bringing you joy
and what is bringing you good energy versus what is
draining your energy? And I think that's also a good
(22:04):
direction to pay attention to. It's not meant to be
like a woo woo thing. It's meant to be like
actually very grounded in logic and analysis and in what
we really want to do and find you know, meaning
and purpose in.
Speaker 3 (22:15):
Do you have any annual or monthly or weekly rituals
around just reminding you to go what matters? What matters
this week? Where should my time go? Do you have
anything like that in place?
Speaker 1 (22:30):
I do have like an annual review that I've been
doing for like twenty years, so I've changed that a
few times over the years, but it is like the
better part of a week of thinking through like what
was the year look like? The past year and what
are some goals for next year based on different categories
and such. But it's a little bit less intensive than
it used to be because now I am more thinking.
(22:52):
I'm not really in the moment because I am kind
of future minded, but it is more like I know
more or less what I want to be doing most
of the time, and it's really only when I get
off track that I have to like refocus a bit.
And also I like projects like you. I like to
write books and so other projects like books. I host
an annual event, and so with these kinds of things,
(23:13):
it has like a built in timeline for it, and
I like that. Actually I like knowing, Okay, seasonally or cyclically,
here's what I need to be doing, and here's how
I can prioritize those things.
Speaker 3 (23:24):
If you've enjoyed everything Chris just shared, then I have
good news. This was just part one of a two
part chat, and next week we're going to be releasing
part two. So do make sure that you hit follow
or subscribe to How I Work wherever you're listening to
this podcast. So I hope you liked this chat with
(23:45):
Chris today, and my goodness, I have personally lapped up
everything he has said. I just love how practical his
advice is, and personally, I've even started to put some
of these strategies into practice since recording this epis. If
you want to learn more about Chris, I highly recommend
checking out his book Time Anxiety, and the links to
(24:07):
that are in the show notes. See you next week
for part two. If you like today's show, make sure
you hit follow on your podcast app to be alerted
when new episodes drop. How I Work was recorded on
the traditional land of the warrangery people, part of the
Cool And Nation
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I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Ridiculous History
History is beautiful, brutal and, often, ridiculous. Join Ben Bowlin and Noel Brown as they dive into some of the weirdest stories from across the span of human civilization in Ridiculous History, a podcast by iHeartRadio.