Updated July 29, 2026 at 11:43 AM CDT
Do you know where your to-do list is? Do you have enough time left before the weekend to check everything off? Do you feel pressure to finish a book you don’t even like?
Here & Now’s Scott Tong talks with Chris Guillebeau, New York Times bestselling author of “Time Anxiety: The Illusion of Urgency and a Better Way to Live,” about practical ways you can relieve stress around time in your life.
Whether you are feeling stress over how to complete daily tasks or feeling like you haven’t accomplished enough in your life, Guillebeau shares some tips and tricks to alleviate worries.
5 questions with Chris Guillebeau
What inspired you to write this book about time anxiety?
“First of all, my own anxiety about time. Before I even had the concept of time anxiety, I felt stressed out, and I felt like, ‘Well, I have a good life. I’m doing things that I enjoy. I like my work. I have good relationships. I like the free time that I have, but there’s not enough free time.’ And also, even among the things that I’m doing, I like them, but could I be doing something different? Is there something better? Is there something more and what does it all add up to? All of these existential questions, so I started talking with other people, and I would use this phrase ‘time anxiety,’ and I noticed they really just latched on to it. Fifteen years of writing books and doing research, I don’t think I’ve ever had a concept that more people just connected to almost intuitively. A lot of people said, ‘Oh, I’ve never heard of this before, but I have it. Whatever time anxiety is, that’s me, that’s my life.’”
Talk a little bit more about how people talk about this. What do you hear?
“It’s so interesting because there’s a lot of common language around it. We did this research study of about 1,500 people, all different ages and backgrounds. People use very similar language, so they kind of put it into two camps. One of them we’ve touched on a bit is this existential ‘What’s the meaning of life?’ or ‘There’s not enough time to do everything that I want to do in life. I worry I’m doing the wrong thing.’ And then the other one, which is somewhat connected, is, ‘Okay, I know what I want to do in my life. I feel like I have purpose and meaning, but there’s just not enough time in the day. How do I make the myriad of choices that I have to make? There’s so many things I could do today to get me closer to whatever my ultimate purpose or meaning is; how do I kind of triage or manage that?’ That can be very overburdening, it can be overwhelming, it can be distressing. I think these two areas kind of interact somewhat. A lot of the language is like, ‘I just feel like I’m too late for something in life.’ And again, I heard that from people from all different ages, which of course is interesting.”
How do you answer the broaded question about time being a finite resource? How do you talk about that?
“I think we ultimately have to have a connection between the things that we’re doing each day and ultimately what is important to each of us. Each person is going to answer that differently in terms of ‘what matters in my life’ and ‘what do I value’ and so on. I think if you lack a connection between your day-to-day, if your day-to-day or your routine is disconnected from what you ultimately want to do or accomplish or become, then that’s going to be distressing. I think that is the first part of the connection. I think beyond that, just understanding and accepting, as you said, the finite scope of time. A lot of people intellectually know this, but they don’t have a true emotional awareness of the fact that their time is limited. Once you begin to gain that awareness, it can be distressing. You’re like, ‘Wow, it’s not enough time.” I think it can also be freeing. Once you understand that, you’re like, ‘Okay, well, I do have to make choices.’ Ultimately, life is about choosing, and while I might not be able to make all the choices I would like to make, I’m not going to be able to do everything. That’s the thing that we say to kids, ‘You can grow up, and you can be anyone, you can do anything.’ That’s a great thing to say to kids, but at a certain point as an adult, you realize, ‘Oh, I actually do need to be a little bit more selective because time is finite.’ Ultimately, as I said, that can be a freeing, joyful realization, even though it comes with perhaps some discomfort at first.”
Let’s talk about some of the practical things that you write about for us to reclaim our time. One of the things that you write about is time decluttering. Is it a matter of, I look at my calendar and ask, ‘What sparks joy?’
“Everybody understands decluttering. I think that’s a helpful thing. If your space, your apartment, your home, your room is crowded or cluttered, it’s going to help you feel better to remove some of those items. I think that’s a good principle. However, like we always say, ‘time is the most precious resource you have.’ Our time is ultimately finite. It’s a non-renewable resource unlike most other resources. So if time is the most important resource, then why aren’t we paying attention to that and asking ourselves, ‘Why do we fill our days with things that we don’t enjoy?’ And yes, in life, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do, but if you can reduce them, then that’s going to help you feel better. Time decluttering, to be specific, is an activity where I’m like, ‘Okay, let’s look at our calendar for the next two weeks, three weeks.’ You can look out a bit further if you want and challenge yourself to remove maybe two or three items from the calendar and just consider, ‘Is there something that is here that I don’t really want to do? Maybe this got added by someone else. Maybe this is a meeting I don’t need to attend. Maybe this is something that seemed like a good idea at the time. Maybe I agreed to it a few months ago, thinking this time will never come … and now it’s coming up.’ What can you do to give yourself that time back? If you give yourself the gift of time, that’s going to feel really, really good. I encourage you, when you do that, don’t just immediately fill up that block of time with something else. Just consider, ‘Okay, I’ve given myself this hour, this morning, afternoon. How do I want to spend that time? How do I want to fill that time if I don’t have constraints?’ Obviously, we all have some constraints, but if I didn’t have the constraints, what would I do during that time? And I think that’s a helpful line of investigation or inquiry to start going down.”
You suggest leaving certain things unfinished, like maybe don’t always finish that book or leave certain tasks done enough, do something a seven out of 10. Perfectionists are going to have a big problem with this. Make the case for it.
“I have a whole chapter in the book called ‘Do Things Poorly,’ which obviously is contrarian to everything that we’ve been taught in school. The reality is, not only should everything not be done with excellence, it’s not possible to do everything with excellence in your life. You already have so many commitments and responsibilities. You want to be excellent in a few things, but you’re not going to be excellent in everything. I think it’s great to leave things unfinished. If you’re watching a show and you liked the first couple episodes of the show, that’s great but you don’t have to watch the whole season. You don’t have to watch all seven seasons. If it’s still bringing you joy, that’s great, but a lot of things just kind of go on and on. If you’re reading a book and you don’t like the first 50 pages, I think a lot of people feel a sense of failure or shame. They feel like if they start a book or anything like this, they have to finish it.
“Life is short; there are lots of great books in the world. There are lots of great movies and shows. And you can just apply this in so many different ways. I think there’s a lot of joy in not finishing. If you learn to flip, like what seems shameful or embarrassing or ‘Oh, I’m just not doing a good job’ to ‘I’ve actually made a choice that I thought this might be a good idea, maybe it’s even a job decision or a career decision. I thought this was going to be good, but it turned out to not be.’ That’s okay. There’s something else I can do right now. Or maybe a circumstance changed. Maybe it was good for a time. Maybe the relationship was good for a time, but things shift. What’s the best decision or the best choice to make? The best choice to make is to look ahead and consider the amount of time that you have available.”
“People feel really stressed out about this topic, and they feel like there’s not enough time, which ultimately is true; there’s not enough time in your life for all of the things that you want to do. I would say, first of all, we need to accept that that is reality. But the good news that follows is if you’re listening, there’s time right now; there’s not all the time in the world, but there’s still time right now. If there’s something that you want to do or that you’ve been putting off or maybe a dream that you have deferred or some change you want to make in your life, I just want to leave you with the fact that there is still time right now.”
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Jenna Griffiths produced and edited this interview for broadcast with Todd Mundt. Griffiths also produced it for the web.
This article was originally published on WBUR.org.
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