Reclaiming Your Time: Why "I'm Too Busy" Isn't Always What It Seems
This is a piece drawn from my Messy Middle Podcast. If you prefer to listen you can do that here on Apple and Spotify. Today, I want to explore something that we all grapple with: time. But not just as a static clock on the wall. I see time as a resource, almost like a currency. It's an exchange that ebbs and flows at different stages of our lives.
The Automatic Response: "I'm So Busy"
You know what I'm talking about. Ask someone how they're doing, and the response is almost automatic: "Oh, I'm just so busy" or "I just don't have time right now" or "Things are manic, I'll do that when I have more time."
It's become as common as talking about the weather. And while it's often true, we say it so frequently that it's worth examining what's really going on.
When Time Constraints Are Real
Let me be clear: there are absolutely seasons in life when time constraints are 100% genuine. Your days might be energetically full with young children, caring for elderly parents, working multiple jobs, or managing a chronic illness. These are completely valid reasons why pursuing your ambitions and goals feels impossible right now.
The list of legitimate demands on our time is endless, and sometimes it genuinely is too much. That's the human experience, we can hold many different truths at the same time.
The Hidden Truth About Busyness
But here's where it gets interesting. Sometimes we feel incredibly busy, and we may genuinely be busy and wonder where the day has gone. Yet we're not necessarily doing the things we truly want to be doing.
Are we filling our time with activities that provide external validation? Things that build our social capital (ie how we are seen and perceived by our networks)? Cultural expectations that dictate "this is just what you do at this stage of life"? We often don't stop to question whether we actually need to join that committee, get involved with the school event, or take on that extra responsibility. We often spend our days performing what we think it means to be a good employee, mother, woman….
Busyness as Emotional Protection
For some of us, busyness serves a sneaky protective function. If we stay busy enough, we don't have time to be vulnerable and put our work out there. We don't have to face potential rejection, criticism, or harm.
It keeps us emotionally safe in our box.
So ask yourself: Are you running on a script of "I'm so busy, I'm so busy" while doing loads of things you don't really want to do? Could this busyness be protecting you from spending time on what you'd secretly love to be doing?
Why Time isn’t Equal
We've all heard it: "Everyone has the same 24 hours in a day. You have the same 24 hours as Beyoncé."
But this is nonsense. Life is far more complex and nuanced than that.
Yes, technically everyone has 24 hours. But let's be real about what that means:
Financial privilege matters. People with significant financial resources can pay for support in all areas of their lives, childcare, housekeeping, meal preparation, personal assistants. They're outsourcing tasks that free up massive amounts of time. That's fine as long as workers aren't being exploited, but let's not pretend we're comparing like with like.
Transportation access matters. People without cars (which should be applauded environmentally) are penalized in terms of time. They spend significantly more time waiting for buses and trains. A quick trip home in a car might take 15 minutes, while the same journey on public transport could take two hours.
Gender disparities are real. There's substantial data showing that women in heterosexual relationships, even when in paid employment, do more household work. Sociologist Arlie Hochschild calls this "the second shift", that time in the afternoon or evening when women clock off one job and switch into the next.
The Invisible Labor
Then there's the mental load and emotional labor that many women carry. These unseen and unpaid jobs include:
Holding all family appointments in your head
Remembering to buy birthday presents
Checking in with in-laws
Keeping the whole household afloat
Soothing family disagreements
Being the person at work who calms things down
Remembering colleagues' birthdays
Even picking up the milk on the way to the office
These tasks are heavily gendered, and our precious time gets consumed by these invisible responsibilities. It might be okay if there was acknowledgment and compensation, but often there isn't.
Health and Cycles Matter
If you're dealing with health issues or menstrual cycle challenges, your available time can vary dramatically. I experience this with endometriosis, some months I can only manage bare minimum work for a week, while other weeks I'm highly productive with what feels like expansive time ahead of me.
In these cases, we simply don't have access to the same number of productive hours. We need more time for rest and care.
The Danger of Internalisation
We need to recognise these systemic issues for what they are. If we don't see that this is systemic, we start to internalise it. We wonder what's wrong with us. Why can't we get our lives together? Why can't we just get our act together? Why can't we be more productive?
DisposableTime vs. Disposable Income
We understand the concept of disposable income, extra money to spend on luxuries. But what about disposable time?
Do you have any time with no scheduling, no commitments, no care requirements? If not, why not? Is it because you don't have the latest time management app? I doubt that very much. This issue is much wider, it's cultural and systemic. It's not always about failing to manage your time better.
The Life Hack Trap
Yet we're constantly searching for the next solution: a smartwatch, a new app, meal planning systems, slow cookers, air fryers (seriously, what is with the air fryer obsession?).
Listen, some of these tools are genuinely helpful. But we treat them as a complete panacea for our troubled relationship with time. We focus on finding the next hack or appliance that will change everything.
The time we spend researching and buying these solutions could often be spent working on our actual dreams and goals. We're looking for ways to continue with our very full, busy lives and just hack our way through more efficiently.
Questioning the Foundations
But this approach accepts that the current pace and capacity are correct from the start. I'm really not sure they are. The foundations are shaky.
If there was one positive thing to emerge from pandemic restrictions, it's that many people reported having more time, relaxing more, and not constantly rushing. Yet we're allegedly back to normal, and I don't think this "normal" is sustainable for anyone.
I love calendars, journals, and optimising systems as much as anyone. But sometimes we need to look at the foundations first. Stop focusing on how to do things better or more efficiently, and consider whether there are simply too many balls in the air to begin with.
Maybe there's nothing wrong with your organising or time management skills. Maybe this is the manifestation of how society is set up: around nuclear families, capitalist workplaces, and everyone being gone eight hours a day for work or school.
It's worth considering: what's a you issue and what's a wider issue?
Starting to Reclaim Your Time
Once you begin to see this for what it is, you can start dropping some of those balls especially if they weren't yours to carry in the first place.
This might mean:
Stepping back from commitments
Doing less
Saying no
When I say this is simple, I don't mean it's easy. These actions can be genuinely difficult:
Stepping back from social obligations can be hard
Finishing at your contracted work time when office culture expects more can have repercussions
Stepping back from a committee when there's no one to replace you brings up complicated feelings
Telling your child you can't do another evening activity can trigger intense guilt
You may have to contend with people being disappointed in you for a while. You may need to let your children experience disappointment and help them navigate that emotion, it's a life skill.
These actions bring up strong feelings because you're breaking powerful cultural norms.
Your Action Plan
If you want to start that business, return to your art hobby, leave that job, or go for that promotion, the story you're telling yourself is that you don't have time to reflect deeply on what you're spending your time on and what you can let go of.
Start Small
I recommend going for low-hanging fruit first. Choose something easy to say no to, where you won't get major pushback. Before you go nuclear and step back from all unasked-for roles, consider what feels safe enough to let go of first.
Reflect and Redirect
Ask yourself:
Where am I spending my time?
What am I doing with my energy?
Where am I putting my focus?
Remember that your time is an energetic resource, a currency. How are you spending it? How are you using it?
You have some control over your time, and some aspects you don't control. We all have different amounts of power, influence, and privilege that affect our capacity for change.
But the first step is seeing this for what it is. It's not an individual issue. It's not a you issue. There is nothing wrong with you or your time management skills.
Then identify the small parts you can change to reclaim some of your time. Because I want you doing the things you're here to do.
A Gentle Reminder
If you manage to reclaim time from external and societal drains, please don't immediately give that time to someone else again. Channel it toward yourself, toward your passions, your purpose, your joy, your relaxation, your rest.
This is a muscle you get to flex, and it gets easier as time goes by.
Knowing where your time goes and what your actual capacity is, is an essential cog in the wheel to change how you work. Time & Energy Intensive is a Free bonus session for you if you book Career Success without the Overwhelm one to one by mid February 2026.
