You’re too busy to read more than this intro paragraph. We all are. Your interest might get piqued enough to skim, but you can’t read the full thing. Our lives all resemble the Mad Hatter, constantly late for our next thing, never enjoying the current thing. You feel simultaneously super productive and yet never productive enough to be satisfied. You yearn for a Jarvis that can automate the mundane aspects of your projects, and yet the prospect of building a Jarvis causes anxiety about not having enough time for yet another project. You see another YouTuber showing off not only a great build but also impressive video production and editing skills. You are suffering from Time Debt, and the solution requires as much discipline and tenacity as escaping from financial debt.

Giving the Problem a Name

Time debt is defined as not having enough time to complete all your commitments before their deadlines. Your commitments are not only the projects you’re working on, but also the things you feel like you should be working on, or things you’d like to do; anything that’s causing you stress. I’ve been dealing with this for years, mostly unsuccessfully. Financially, I’m stable and savvy and make good decisions. Technically, I’m competent in my fields and generally choose solutions that are scalable and repeatable. How I handle time, though, has always been a challenge. I struggle to say no to new projects, and I underestimate the amount of time a project will take. Symptoms include:

• Constant stress and anxiety
• Always borrowing time from things you’d rather do to work on pressing needs or projects or chores
• There’s never enough time to do what you want
• Trying to optimize everything to fit it all in
• Never enjoying the moment, always thinking about what’s next

How it Happens

“You know what would be neat? …”, “I bet you could…”, “I should fix this thing.” Around my house there is a mantra of “No New Projects” because I know that if I didn’t say that I’d be taking on WAY more than I’m capable of handling. When thinking about time debt, think about its equivalent in finance. You get into debt by spending or committing more than you have, and you solve that by either reducing your expenses or increasing your income. When you commit to a project, or underestimate how long it will take, you’re writing a big check that there may not be enough time to cash, and your optimism or confidence fool you into thinking it can still be done. Essentially, you are your own worst enemy when it comes to time debt.

Fixing It

Oddly enough, even though few people talk about time debt, the solution is exactly the same as solving financial debt, and all of the tools work exactly the same. Some of them even work in reverse (for example, you get out of financial debt by doing stuff yourself, and you get out of time debt by paying someone to do things you don’t have time for).

The first step is to determine …read more