Time Scarcity and Time Anxiety: 6 Ways to Shift the Story
Time scarcity and time anxiety are alive and well.
After many years as a therapist and coach working mostly with women, it’s clear to me that there’s a direct link between time scarcity and anxiety.
While there’s much more available information and awareness of the issue than in the past, the lived experience of it hasn’t shifted much for women. More often than not, my clients feel overwhelmed by multiple roles and responsibilities, as well as a sense of obligation to be responsible for other’s needs.
Too often women experience the daily frustrations of time scarcity and anxiety.
Maybe you’ve been in the grips of it yourself?
- You try to stay on top of all the things, mentally rehearsing the days tasks over and over again
- The mental loop of rumination may run continuously, sometimes without you being aware of it.
- You feel a nagging worry and perhaps a feeling of dread that you’re not going to be able to keep up.
- There’s limited satisfaction in finishing because there’s always something else to do.
- The emotional and physical exhaustion that accompanies it leaves you drained and overwhelmed.
- Boundaries between work/home responsibilities and the rest of your life are complicated and difficult to hold.
It’s most important to know this: your experience is real.
You didn’t bring on the time scarcity and anxiety problem because you’re not doing enough. Or because your mindset is wrong. Or your coping skills are flawed.
It is complicated, though, because time scarcity and time anxiety are both similar and different.
What is time scarcity and what is time anxiety?
Time scarcity is the perception or feeling of not having enough time for tasks, while time anxiety is the emotional response (worry, stress, panic) to that scarcity.
This often leads to a negative loop where anxiety worsens focus, creating more perceived scarcity. Essentially, scarcity is the lack of resource, and anxiety is the fear or distress it causes, impacting mental well-being and decision-making, even if objective time isn’t truly lacking.
-Source: Google AI
While it’s helpful to understand that time scarcity is the condition and time anxiety is the reaction to it, the definition doesn’t include your real world experience of it.
Time scarcity is not a “perception” or a “feeling,” it is a real experience that happens in real time for many women. The actual experience of it triggers an emotional response (anxiety) that might include overwhelm, worry, racing thoughts, sleep disruptions, and exhaustion.
But knowing this doesn’t change the fact that the people we engage with and the environments in which we live and work are rarely attuned to the problem.
Furthermore, women are twice as likely as men to experience anxiety.
Time scarcity and time anxiety are very real contributors to that. In fact, there’s evidence to suggest that time scarcity not only increases anxiety, stress, and worry, but also affects overall well-being.
It’s a complicated subject with a lot of moving parts.
In addition to the “second shift” that working women tend to take on, recent articles have confirmed what women have known for years: they carry most of the mental load at work and in their homes.
The experience of time scarcity and anxiety may open you up to many layers of emotion.
You probably have other feelings underneath the anxiety and sense of scarcity. And if you’re like many of my clients, you may feel frustrated. But below the frustration? You may notice deep yearnings and longings.
Yearning for more time, more freedom, more from life. Taking actions (small and large) to walk away from overwhelm and claim space for yourself.
Longing for experiences: self renewal, creative pursuits, hobbies, being in the moment with those you care about.
Or simply stopping. And putting down the heavy load.
This is where things get interesting.
We can talk about the problem and try to address it in our homes and workplaces. We often have some influence to shift the burden and carry less of the load so that we can focus more on our own needs.
Obviously the deck isn’t totally stacked against us. Yet, in a recent study that revealed women carry about 80% of the cognitive/mental load in their families, both women and men tended to minimize or normalize that. They fell back on the old cliche: We’re just different.
No wonder it feels challenging to stop and take time for yourself.
Often, when conversations about doing less, taking breaks, putting your needs first come up in therapy, there’s almost always an acknowledgement that this would be a good thing.
And then, there might be words of resistance. Yes, but…
- Things would fall apart.
- I wouldn’t get anything else done.
- It would be selfish.
- I’d fall behind and it would just make it harder to catch up.
- What would people think?
Resistance can be signpost, inviting a deeper look.
Frequently, what’s lurking beneath the resistance are deep archetypal stories that feed the dilemma of time scarcity and anxiety.
It’s helpful to recognize and unpack them. Bringing them into the light of day begins to shift them, because shadowy stories often appear to make sense on the surface, but are hiding other possibilities and truths.
Six shadow stories that make it harder to address time anxiety and scarcity.
- The story underneath caring for others: Their needs come first. I Mine can wait or I’ll get to them eventually.
- The story underneath responsibility: Things will fall apart if I don’t stay on top of them. I can’t risk letting go of control.
- The story underneath caring for self: My resources are scarce. Thinking about my needs exhausts me and makes things worse.
- The story underneath taking healing action: Nothing’s going to change and I’m already so depleted why even bother?
- The story underneath creative possibility: So many options…I’m overwhelmed. How could I choose which of my needs to start with?
- The story underneath healthy rebellion: If I open this door, who knows what other radical, revolutionary things I might do?
Maybe you see something of yourself in one or more of these stories?
I know, they’re pretty dramatic.
But that’s the nature of an archetypal story, composed of both light and shadow. And contrary to what you may have heard, this doesn’t mean you’re in the grips of a limiting story that you need to let go of or rewrite. It actually means that there’s a shadow side to all humans and you are human.
Still, these stories, these inner characters, will always be there.
They exist beyond our experience or history. They’re universal. They don’t go away. That’s the nature of an archetype.
However, recognizing them can help us change our relationship with time scarcity and anxiety.
We can…
- stay present to their existence
- start a dialogue with them
- draw them, paint them, collage them
- get curious about them: what’s beneath their fears?
- try to understand why they undermine our deeper needs
By looking underneath the surface and giving them a voice, we can partner with them. In fact, they can actually be our allies when we’re trying to move forward, beyond the confines of time scarcity and anxiety.
And you can begin by asking: Which of these stories feels familiar to me?
Anxiety is one of the most common reasons women seek counseling and therapy.
I offer women’s anxiety therapy in Santa Rosa CA and online across California.
