Why do we feel like we don't have time, even though we work less than we think. Psychologist: “Time management is not the solution”

Although Romania is one of the European countries with the longest working weeks, rightly so Eurostatthe number of legal hours at work has decreased constantly in the last ten years, and the problem of lack of time is not explained only by the professional schedule. For many adults, the day seems to be over before personal time begins. A good portion is lost due to interruptions, small decisions, messages and mental fatigue. This explains why a day can seem much busier than the calendar actually shows.

Laura Vanderkam, an American time management expert and author of “168 Hours. You Have More Time Than You Think,” has observed that people frequently overestimate their schedules. In a time-tracking challenge in which nearly 300 people participated, many discovered, after a week of carefully noting all their activities, that they had actually worked less than they thought.

The explanation lies in the way memory compresses days. A few very busy days can influence how the whole week is perceived, even if the rest of the schedule was more balanced. This is where the differences between the time actually worked and the time attributed, subjectively, to work appear. In many cases, the problem is not only the length of the program, but also how the hours left after work are used. After a busy day, activities without a clear intention, such as scrolling through social media, can quickly occupy free time, especially when mental fatigue sets in.

Four free hours are lost daily in front of the screens

The annual calculation shows why the feeling of lack of time cannot be explained by work alone. A year has 8,760 hours. Subtracting about 1,750 hours for work and 2,700 for sleep leaves over 4,300 hours that a person is awake and not working.

Some of this time is inevitably spent on travel, shopping, children, housework or family obligations. Even so, many free hours end up being consumed by passive activities, especially television, telephone and online platforms. An American Time Use Survey released in June 2025 by the US Bureau of Labor Statistics shows that adults spend an average of 2 hours and 36 minutes per day watching television, the lowest amount in a decade. The decrease does not mean, however, that free time is used more for reading, exercise or actual rest. Some of it has most likely moved to the phone and other mobile screens, harder to track in classic statistics.

Laura Vanderkam noticed that the hours between finishing work and going to bed are the worst managed of the entire day. That's because at work there are meetings, deadlines and clear tasks. In the family there are meals, homework, shopping or other responsibilities. Instead, between 18.00 and 22.00, time slips by without you realizing it.

In a challenge proposed by the time management specialist, nearly 200 participants chose a single daily activity of 30 or 60 minutes, unrelated to work, housework or personal hygiene. Some read, others walked, practiced an instrument, or did an activity they kept putting off. After a month, many said their evenings felt better used, even though their schedule hadn't changed dramatically.

Notes for a week

One of the simplest exercises recommended by Laura Vanderkam is to write down all your activities for a week in 30-minute intervals. Not as a form of rigid control, but as a check on what a typical day actually looks like.

Many people only then discover the difference between the schedule they think they have and the actual schedule. Work hours may be less than expected and time spent on social media may be more.

The specialist uses a simple table, divided by days and by half-hour intervals, completed several times a day. “Everyone has free time, even if not as much as they'd like. I can't promise it's time well spent, but I can promise it's there,” Laura Vanderkam pointed out.

The weekend as a holiday

A study published in 2020 in the journal Social Psychological and Personality Science by researchers at the UCLA Anderson School of Management tested how weekend activities can influence the rest of the week.

The 441 American employees included in the experiment were divided into two groups. Some were asked to treat the weekend as a holiday, and others – to spend the weekend as usual. On Monday, when they returned to the office, those in the first group reported more good mood, fewer negative emotions, and greater job satisfaction.

The researchers observed that the difference was not related to the activities chosen, but to the attitude with which the participants reported their free time. Those “on vacation” devoted less time to household chores and were more attentive to the activities in which they were involved.

From time management to attention management

“Time management is not the solution, it's actually part of the problem. There are a limited number of hours in a day, and focusing exclusively on time management makes us more aware of how many of those hours we're wasting,” pointed out Adam Grant, organizational psychologist and author of several books on performance.

Grant says time management doesn't start with dividing the day into hours, but with choosing the right time for each type of work. A difficult task does not require the same effort every time. Some people think more clearly in the morning and can make decisions, write or analyze more easily then. Others work better in the evening, when they have fewer interruptions and can focus better.

An experiment conducted by Grant in a Korean department store showed that the order of tasks can influence performance. Employees who had first worked on a highly interesting task performed worse on the boring tasks that immediately followed. The explanation lies in the so-called attention residual. Part of the mind remains stuck in the previous activity, and switching to something mundane becomes more difficult. The ideal task order is moderately-interesting, then boring, and the reward, i.e. the most fascinating task, last.

Microbreaks reduce fatigue without breaking the rhythm: Romanian study

The short breaks during the program were analyzed in a meta-analysis coordinated by Patricia Albulescu, researcher in the Psychology Department of the West University of Timișoara. The review, published in 2022 in the journal PLOS ONE, included 22 studies on short breaks between tasks and 2,335 participants.

The results showed that breaks of less than ten minutes can reduce fatigue and maintain energy levels, especially when chosen consciously. The effect on performance is harder to measure and depends on the type of activity before. In general, the slightly longer the break, the more noticeable the feeling of recovery.

The authors noted that micro-breaks mainly help maintain energy levels and reduce fatigue. In other words, they don't automatically turn a tough day into a productive one, but they can reduce the rapid onset of burnout.

Ten minutes a day becomes 60 hours in a year

Laura Vanderkam recommends a very simple method for goals that seem difficult to achieve: breaking them down into small daily steps. In this way he claims to have completed “War and Peace”, one chapter a day, out of the 361 of the novel. In 2024, he used the same method to listen to all 1,080 known Bach works.

Ten minutes a day doesn't seem like enough for a big goal, but in a year it adds up to over 60 hours. In this interval you can memorize the basic vocabulary of a foreign language, learn major scales on the piano or read 100 pages of a book.

“People overestimate what they can do in the short term and underestimate what they can do in the long term,” the specialist emphasized.

A study published in the journal Psychological Science also showed that time can be perceived differently when it is used for something meaningful. Participants who helped vulnerable students later felt less pressed for time than those who had been given a free interval for them. It was not the number of hours that mattered, but how they were used.

Time management techniques that actually work

For those who need concrete tools for time management, there are some easy-to-apply methods. They don't work the same for everyone, but they can help especially when the day is broken up into several small tasks or when important things are constantly being put off.

• The Pomodoro technique. The method, created by Francesco Cirillo in the 1980s, divides work into 25-minute intervals of concentration, followed by five minutes of rest. After four such cycles, there is a longer break of 15-30 minutes. The name comes from the tomato-shaped kitchen clock that Cirillo used as a student. The technique can be especially useful for difficult-to-start tasks.
• Blocking time slots in the calendar. Time blocking means reserving clear intervals for certain types of activities. Mails, for example, can be checked two to three times a day, not every time a notification appears. The method reduces frequent switching from one task to another and helps to protect the intervals of concentrated work.
• The Eisenhower matrix. This method divides tasks according to two criteria, urgency and importance. Some things must be done immediately, others can be scheduled, delegated or eliminated. It's especially useful when your to-do list seems full, but not all tasks are of equal importance.
• The two minute rule. Popularized by David Allen in Getting Things Done, the rule states that a task that can be completed in less than two minutes should be done on the spot. A short reply, a confirmation, an appointment or a quick note no longer ends up in an attention-consuming mental list.
• Matching tasks to the rhythm of the day. Daniel Pink, author of “When. The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing,” recommends organizing activities according to mental energy. For many, the morning is more suitable for analysis, decisions and activities that require concentration. Administrative tasks can be left for the hours when the energy is low, and creative activities can go better in the afternoon, during more relaxed periods. For those who work better in the evening, the order changes.