You are suffering from Time Poverty if:
[ul]
[li]Life has become a sum of tasks, with the short term always taking the the priority. [/li][li]If you have a sense of running out of time. [/li][li]Family meals are a thing of the past. [/li][li]You are running from appointment to appointment [/li][li]Taking work home [/li][li]Cramming leisure time into short bursts of stress filled moments. [/li][li]Despite being more connected you are actually disconnected from those who matter to you. [/li][li]You are stressed with multitasking demands over time. [/li][/ul]
Manifestations of time poverty: [ul]
[li]Convenience Foods - These foods are fast to prepare and eat, but often are not nutritious and make us fat. [/li][li]Long Commutes to Work [/li][li]Overscheduled kids [/li][li]Underconnected Familes [/li][li]Shrinking Vacations [/li][*]No time for community or volunteering for a cause you believe in. [/ul]
Oh yeah. Spent the last several years working full-time on third shift, going to school during the day, and doing student teaching in afternoons. Many semesters, I simply didn’t have time to go home, so I’d sleep in my car between classes and jobs. Lost contact with most of my family and friends, lost two romantic relationships (and it was amazing that any romances started, as I had years of downtime between dates). One vacation in the last decade, and it was stressful because I had an online class hanging over my head at the time. A diet of candy bars, energy drinks, and protein shakes purchased on campus or en route somewhere, since I had no time to cook. Blood pressure is up, undoubtedly due to the crap I eat.
When I do get time off, I crash; staying inside, not really going out and doing things.
I worked overnight last night, am getting ready to drive up to campus to lead some morning workshops for new student mentors, will have to work overnight tonight, and have a 9-hour long conference to attend during the day. The new semester begins… and I’m wondering how I’m going to have time to find grad schools, let alone apply to them, or get my GRE done.
The crazy thing was that both romances were with independently wealthy women, and both offered me the opportunity to quit working and just concentrate on school. I didn’t feel right using their money, though, and the constant work stress ended up breaking us apart. I guess I’m masochistic to some extent.
Most of your bullet points hold true for me, at least to some degree.
The exceptions are that I don’t take work home (it’s not allowed), and my kids’ overscheduling is their doing, not mine. (They have their own cars so we no longer have to chauffer them.) Family vacations are definitely shrinking, but I don’t let my personal time off get shortened. I just go on trips by myself or with friends.
Occasionally I have to decide not to “pay” some time bills and take the necessary break. I’m leaving for a 4 day trip to my hunting lease* soon, just to get away from the incessant demands. I take my dogs for company since they’re the only laid back beings in my world at the moment. The world will have to manage for awhile.
*My lease is so far back in the woods that there is no cell coverage. Wife and kids still haven’t figured out this is its primary attraction.
Nope. Simplicity may make me appear boring and I don’t have a lot of interesting tales to tell. But I always make enough time to do the things I want to do and stay pretty preoccupied.
I am single and unencumbered by another person’s wishes and desires, though. I think that makes a big difference.
I wavered and finally chose guy, a problem over liking being busy. What I really, really hate is when I have more than one thing I want to do at the same time and I have no control over the scheduling of them. Often I have to choose the one I am in charge of.
I was drug to the senior citizens center once. I found it pathetic, people younger and healthier than me with nothing meaningful to do in their life.
You’d be wrong. Posting on an internet messageboard is exactly the type of thing, like TV watching, that you do when you don’t have (or take) time or energy to schedule real relaxing stuff. Visiting with someone, a family outing, a class, a hobby project, all those things take an alotted and pre-planned amount of time. But you can always plop in front of the TV or the PC “just for a second” even if that second ends up being an hour. When that hour is up, you don’t have a real relaxed feeling, jsut the feeling that you have less time for all other stuff you need to do. It is different if you actually planned to surf the Dope, of course.
We are having to make a conscious effort as a family not to fall into this trap.
Fortunately we are aware of the pressures, and have agreed ways to mitigate it.
So we make sure we cook tea at least 5 nights a week, our daughter only does one night a week of extra curricula activity (she’s only 3), and my blackberry gets shut in another room during meals times and daughter’s bedtime.
The vacation issue is one we are working on still… our lack of time is compounded by lack of money and the stresses of holidaying with a toddler, but from next month that should pick up and we have some proper holidays plans in mind.
Didn’t realize that people actually lived like that. The only thing that fits me is long commute to work. But that’s only because I want to have a short commute to everywhere else.
I’m far more time poor than money poor.
I don’t have the meal problem, since my wife works from home and loves to cook. And the kids are gone. But I have work related hobbies, like conferences, and that chews up lots of time.
Not getting 8 hours of sleep because you can’t afford to should be on the list.
But in general I have large stacks of books and other things stacked up to get to some day. I figure I’ll catch up when I retire, which won’t be soon enough.
Time poverty has been an issue with us. Mostly because of disorganization. I hate cleaning and organizing the house. My husband doesn’t know how to. So sometimes it’s hard to find things when we need them, which takes additional time out of an already very busy schedule and makes both me and my husband really, really mad.
We’re slowly getting better. We have to. Our son just started kindergarten and, with all the support we’ll need to give him and the extra paperwork and also needing to provide our daughter with attention, we simply don’t have time anymore to be disorganized. We’re still dealing with an avalanche of paper and a laundry bomb (at least it’s clean laundry), but it’s nothing like where we were when my son was 1 or 2.
I have four kids (one to eight y.o.), and there are things I’d like to do which I simply can’t find time to do, but that’s life. I do not suffer from ‘time poverty’.
I checked both that I get bored because I have too much time and that I have time poverty.
Mostly it’s because our life has times when we are super busy at work or at home (weddings, school stuff) and then there are times when things calm down and my A type personality cannot relax so I get really bored really fast.
Honestly, I am better when I have a ton of things to do (small things, that is).
We try to keep the kids as unprogrammed as is possible.
Sadly, yes, I’ve fallen deep into this trap. It’s a big stressor coming from the Type-A Mrs G. Any leisure time is now met with resentment and stress, due to the stack up of the millions of other projects and things that aren’t getting done timely. Conversely, I’m the first person to say “take a break, chill out awhile”. It doesn’t make for a happy environment.
