Did you know that research suggests that time as we perceive it actually does move faster for older people?
It’s not just in our heads!
Well, I mean it could be … one theory is that as we get older our brains aren’t having to process as many visuals because we’ve become more familiar with visuals present in our everyday lives. For children, however, they’re absorbing new things often meaning that their brains are taking longer to process lots of things, and the more things being processed, the longer time feels.
Still wrapping my head around it, but the way I see it, if I have a day where I’ve been up early, exercised, been to an appointment, picked up shopping, had lunch with a friend, picked kids up from school, dropped kids to afterschool activities, completed errands, cooked dinner, and more, by the time I get into bed, the morning feels like a long time ago. Because I’ve been doing lots of things in lots of different places that’s outside of my usual.
Whereas a day I spend at home working and engaged in my usual routines, the faster that precious working and creative time seems to slip through my fingers and I wonder how the day got away from me so quickly.
Another theory my husband shared with me many years ago suggests that our perception of time could be based on the amount of time we’ve already lived. So for a 4-year-old, two years seems awfully long as it’s half their lifetime, whereas for a 40-year-old, two years feels like it’s gone in the blink of an eye as it’s only 5% of their lifetime.
What I’m saying is, I’m not far off 40 (nope, not even sad about it, I’m totally fine!) and days, weeks, months, YEARS even, are absolutely flying by and I CANNOT keep up.
I know many people would say just let a few things go, drop some of those responsibilities or extra things you’re taking on but don’t really need. Let me tell you a story, recently I could not let go of the ‘weakest’ cucumber and tomato sprouts to allow the strongest to grow (they’re all STRONG little babies and I will not destroy any of them!), so safe to say I have a hard time letting go of things.
If I can’t (won’t) drop any things, what am I going to do about it?
Usually I operate by focusing on my top priority and giving that all my time and energy with everything else having to wait in line while I stress about all the others in the back of my mind and then majorly stress about having neglected those other things when it comes time to finally deal with them and those things have become four baskets of laundry to put away, an elephant-sized layer of dog hair needing to be vacuumed up, and a three-month unplanned social media break to catch up on.
Most of the time it’s editing work right at the top of my priority list because other people are relying on those projects and I have set deadlines. Writing and illustrating to deadlines takes priority too, but it’s a relatively new thing for me to have deadlines for these, so I’m still adjusting.
This all makes sense – obviously getting the actual work done whether editing, writing, or illustrating takes top priority. But it means that my emails build up (though I do answer important ones asap) and social media gets ignored. I’ve been known to disappear for months at a time before jumping back on with apologies for being away for so long. (Not that anyone really notices I’m missing with the constant flow of content now thrown out there to consume, but even my more recent bout of consistency with such things has shown some growth, so I do feel it’s important.)
So what am I going to do about this feeling of time passing way too fast and not being able to keep up with anything?
For one thing, I’m going to get back to doing my stretches to try to ease the ridiculous amount of tension in my neck (even my physio was like ‘you really can’t relax your neck, can you??’ No, no I cannot).
There are also two things I’m trying out to help me get my shhh–life together.
I’m not expecting that these things will be the only things I need to do in order to feel like I have more control and feel a little more organised, but I find it works best for me to make one or two little changes at a time before further tweaking.
So let’s give these two a go.
Planning/scheduling social media
I know lots of people do this already and I have done bits and pieces of scheduling before, but until recently I hadn’t planned out a whole week of social media content in advance.
In some ways it feels a little icky. I like to post things when I feel like posting, when a feeling or moment has me wanting to share with people, but that seems to result in me wanting to post but not having time at that particular time, scrambling to figure out what to post, feeling bad when I don’t post, and feeling generally stressed about social media when I just want to enjoy it.
I’ve started using Meta Business Suite to post on both Facebook and Instagram, which I’m finally getting used to so hopefully I stop making silly mistakes like posting straight away and forgetting to schedule or forgetting to add audio to a reel. I’m sure it’ll all get quicker and easier the more I do it.
I’m not really posting much on Twitter (X, whatever) anymore, I occasionally post on LinkedIn, and the only other place I want to be active is here.
I’m finding those three main active places to be manageable right now and I’m not fussing about the rest.
Sorting my emails
This is going to be a big process that I’m dreading. I’ve long known that my emails are a mess and need to be dealt with. Currently, everything goes into my inbox. All my work emails, newsletters, Substack newsletters, anything school-related, book-related and so on. Even the occasional junk that I’ve accidentally used that email address for instead of my other ‘junk-collecting’ email address (I’m looking at you, Guzman, and now I want a burrito).
What’s the plan?
I’m going to create labels for all the different kinds of emails I receive and then go through the big process of moving them under the appropriate labels.
This way, hopefully I’ll be able to better see, easily find, and prioritise my emails instead of spending hours every Monday sorting through them all.
I’m also considering changing up some of my settings here so that I’m not receiving Substack emails at my email address but rather just in my Substack inbox. I’m a little unsure about that as I’m worried I’ll end up forgetting to check Substack for new newsletters that I love to read and I’ll miss them altogether.
Substack friends, what do you do?
And though there’s not much I can do about getting older and therefore my perception of time feeling increasingly faster, I can try these new things and continue to explore more planning and organisation solutions. (Or maybe a vampire will turn me and I’ll have all the time in the world for these things … will vampire me still stress about all the things?)
Please share with me in the comments any things you’re doing to try to ease that sense of overwhelm that there’s not enough time in the day. Or feel free to let me know that I’m not alone … because it’s not just me, right? Right?
That’s all for today, friends.
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Yanu!
I acknowledge the Darkinyung people as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which I live and work, and I pay my respects to the Elders past and present.
My bullet journal helps me kind of stay organized. Or at least I have a place where I can go to when I forget what I'm supposed to be doing! Haha. I had to switch to the app for all my substack subscriptions, otherwise my email inbox would have driven me nutty. I get notifications, so I don't think I miss anything. Plus, this way I can scroll through my substack inbox and read the ones that jump out at me.
I'm not a very organized person, but this year I decided to try one of those big wall calendars so I can see the whole year at a glance. The jury is still out on whether it's helping me or not!
Time flies by me too and I have a lot of hats to wear. I have a day job, take care of two young children, run my content creation sites and now I want to do more creative writing.
I am experimenting at the moment using the agile mindset, I plan in 2 weeks sprint and time box all the tasks for this in my calendar, which is also sync with my work and and the shared calendar with my husband bout kids and family events. I can't say yet if it's working but at least I have an overview and feel a little bit more in control. :)
ah our age is peak of time flying by as we have so much to do and torn into so many directions. I can imagine when we are old (like old old), time will be slow again.