Time Management as Wellness

Have you ever stayed in bed and binge-watched Netflix or scrolled through social media all day long? As the day continued, you started to feel restless, irritable, and anxious. If so, you were probably experiencing cabin fever. I have felt her a time or 72 in my life. Actually, I start to feel this way after about 45 minutes of binge-scrolling social media. When I overconsume content, I believe my brain and body start to reject it and these feelings emerge as a signal that I have consumed too much. Considering all the avenues of possible content consumption, overconsuming is not much of a challenge today. While I am not a proponent of capitalism, I do believe humans need to produce and express their potential in order to be well. Spending our time adding value to the world and giving of ourselves is an act of wellness. Overconsumption can trap people into inactivity. 

Paradoxically, society often requires people to work vigorously without sufficient time for rest and recovery. I have experienced that for the better part of my career. While there are people who acquiesce to this demand in order to obtain status, they often agree to sacrifice their wellness in exchange. Just as people need to test their potential and contribute, they also need rest and recovery to be well. I remember working for an organization, where I was managing more work streams than I could count. My supervisor would gripe and reprimand me if I missed an email or forgot to send an updated calendar invite. In like fashion, I berated myself for these silly oversights, until I realized that I was overworked and could not produce optimally in every area. I am thankful for that realization because I was able to extend grace to myself. I needed time to recover and regain strength, but that time did not exist for me in that world.

Finding the sweet spot between rest and productivity is challenging in our society. I am not referring to occasional bursts of rest or productivity. Months and years enduring stretches of work, then a 5-day vacation to relax the mind, is not sustainable. I am advocating for consistent balance – daily practices and habits that allow the body and mind to flow in and out of rest and production as needed, as inspired, and as disciplined. To me, that feels like relief and harmony. 

Using time management as a tool of wellness can broker this relationship. Many of the resources that I have gleaned from have marketed time management as an extension of productivity, solely. Much of that makes sense because we are called on to be productive by our jobs and other responsibilities without regard to our wellness. Time management should develop healthy boundaries for productivity, rest, enjoyment, leisure, and all the other wonderful things that fill our time.