Peter was a driven leader and parent who prided himself on maximizing every minute.
He never turned down an extra work project, coached his kid’s sports teams, hosted dinner parties, and was on the board of directors at his local food bank. Last month he decided to train for his first marathon and finally get that puppy his kids wanted.
He owned three planners and spent time updating and meticulously color coding them.
He often found himself waking up late at night to revise that PowerPoint presentation one last time, or catching up on his social media responses so people wouldn’t think he was ignoring them. Every week he was overwhelmed by the number of texts to return or coffee meetings because he couldn’t turn down an invitation. Sometimes simple tasks would take hours. He felt a strong urge to give full effort to each thing he did.
He kept telling himself maybe life would calm down if he could just “get a little more organized.”
By all accounts, Peter was a good guy and loved by his family, friends, and neighbors—but he was constantly racing from one thing to the next, couldn’t slow down his racing thoughts, and never seemed to have enough time.
If any of this sounds familiar, you are not alone.
Five personality styles that fuel time famine
Feeling too busy and running out of time has become the norm despite all our technology to make us more efficient.
Why?
Because no matter what new tools we have, we might be avoiding the reflection and awareness it takes to look at the emotional needs or childhood habits that are actually driving the behavior.
The optimist
These people might schedule back-to-back meetings by assuming there will be no delays or interruptions, that everything will go according to plan. But how often does that really happen?
They chronically feel they can fit “one more thing” into the schedule for fear of missing an opportunity.
This habit is based on the planning fallacy, first discovered by Tversky and Kahneman in 1979, where research showed that people frequently underestimate the time it will take to do something. Studies on students completing big projects, Canadian tax payers, and even home renovation all show the people chronically underestimate how long things will take.
The solution lies in turning down some opportunities for the most important things, and leaving a lot more margin for delays.
The perfectionist
This habit usually develops early in childhood as a means to cope with life feeling out of control or wanting to win the affection of someone important.
Although it is often developed as an emotional survival strategy, it can create problems later in life when a person has difficulty revising a simple email that should take a few minutes or researching things endlessly for fear of making a mistake. Clear deadlines are important for these people (even self-imposed) to avoid infinite revisions on big projects.
The pleaser
This is another habit that usually begins early in childhood as a coping strategy, but people with this style can quickly find themselves overwhelmed by saying Yes to way too many things, helping too many people, or letting anyone interrupt their focus.
The internal belief is “If I say no even once, it will wreck the relationship.” So it becomes an impossible pursuit of seeking approval which can easily lead to burnout.
Breaking this habit might be one of the hardest and could require some work with a coach or therapist since the emotional roots may be deep. But the solution lies in letting a few people down and being clear about pleasing the people that matter most, and balancing that with healthy self-care.
The avoider
With this style, time runs out when people refuse to tackle difficult tasks head on.
They might fill up their days with the least important tasks first because it feels good to check simple things off a list. They put off the hard thinking required for the projects that would really make a difference.
Research consistently shows that our brains prefer lazy tasks because of the mental effort involved in struggling with hard, but highly meaningful and impactful work.
The solution for this is simple to understand, but difficult to practice. People with this habit will need to begin their day with the hardest tasks first and set self-imposed deadlines and milestones on big projects.
People with this habit usually have the internal belief, “I will eventually feel more ready to do this, I just don’t feel like it right now.” This is rarely the case.
The hero (firefighter)
Someone with this habit might be attracted to the excitement of high-intensity tasks, drama, or crises. This can resemble people-pleasing behavior when people enjoy being viewed as helpful or feel a strong need to be appreciated for fixing other peoples problems.
But at work this behavior can look like someone always responding to the most urgent issue without having the requisite time to plan ahead.
I still use the four quadrants from Stephen Coveys book The Seven Habits of Highly Effective people where all tasks are some combination of Urgent and Important. If you are always firefighting, it’s difficult to make time for things that are supremely Important, but not Urgent (like planning a big wedding anniversary).
The internal belief that drives this behavior is the lie that “everything is urgent.” But leaders and organizations that create this culture will quickly burn people out. As the saying goes, “When everything is a priority, nothing is a priority.” High level leaders with this habit can be very damaging to an organization because the behavior trickles down.
Sometimes it helps to look at the not urgent and not important tasks in case they can be skipped entirely. This is easier when the person is not also a perfectionist!
The solution to this again might involve a leader working with a therapist or coach to help identify the important but not urgent tasks that need time and attention, and looking at the psychological drivers that cause someone to get too many needs met from managing constant crises.
Take action now
Take a good look at some of these habits and write down the evidence “for or against” each style. Then take one action step this week toward experimenting with the opposite of your natural tendency.
The ultimate goal is to have clear priorities at work and at home, to begin days with the hardest and most meaningful work, and plan lots of margin for things to take longer than you think they will—but this only happens when you turn down lots of less important commitments and relationships. It’s a constant work in progress that requires rebalancing through the different seasons of life.
Have a great weekend!
Parker
