We are proud of our employment and dream that there are more hours in the day. We are fond of time management and think how great it would be not to sleep at all. The main thing remains unnoticed – the tension and lack of time we often create ourselves. How and why this is happening, says the creator of the course “Year of happiness” Kira Naywan.
Right now I feel how the stomach is compressed with stress. This morning I was called a close friend who needs support, so I could not write an article in time. At any time, colleagues can write to me and ask for help with the completion of the urgent assignment. In addition, today I need to leave work early to get to the dentist. After that I will rush home to cook dinner. I do not have enough time, and I know that I am not alone in this.
At first glance, everything is obvious: the problem is a lack of time. This is true, but only partly. Here are a few scientific discoveries that will help distinguish between real lack of time from pressure that you create yourself.
1. Lack of pleasure
Sociologist Susan Roxburgh conducted a study
with the participation of 800 working subjects and found out that when women were engaged in housework for more than 10 hours a week, they felt depressed and felt a lack of time. When men performed the same volume of work, they did not feel anything like this. The same pattern was observed in the case of volunteer work. Men who devoted more time to volunteering were less prone to suppressed mood. Women in a similar situation have encountered anxiety due to a lack of time.
To find an explanation, it was necessary to analyze what exactly people did. It turned out that men more often chose more pleasant types of homework and volunteer activities. They cut off the lawns and trained football teams. So they entered the stream and felt satisfaction. Women often performed small repeated tasks and boring and exhausting administrative work.