Who is stealing your time?

Combat the thief of time!

Author

Peter DePaulo
February 09, 2024

Week three down for Time Alchemy! We've done 6 workshops, scheduled our first Time Alchemy Weekend Retreat, and we’re going to be speaking a crypto conference. Today, we're going to talk about the THEFT of TIME: the feeling that someone or something outside of you is responsible for your lost time.

With a heavy heart, it dawned on the traveler that the deed was done. Time had been fractured and broken into infinitesimal shards. The Time Alchemist looked over the vast expanse of melted clocks realizing the Horsemen of the O'Clockalypse had seemingly won. Lack, Loss, Theft and Poison had twisted the minds of the masses into a gruesome gordian knot. Now it was up to the lone chronomancer to fix; to save time, and liberate the sorry souls trapped in sleepless oblivion.

"No time like the present!" she laughed to herself, and began to draw circles in sand.

In the Time Alchemy canon, we have our villains, the Four Horsemen of the O'Clockalypse but who is the hero? Well, the Alchemist of course. Word around here is that you might be one of them! This week we face the great thief of time!

The Thief of Time is a tricky figure. Almost as abstract as the Poison of Time. The easiest way to envision the Time Theft is in that person who is completely inconsiderate with requests. They might show up at work and ask you to do something right as you're about to leave. They might grab you on a call and not let you get off the phone. The truth is a bit more interesting.

You see, the Theft of Time, as a character, represents an external locus of control and a relinquishing of agency. In other words, it has nothing to do with a person actually stealing time from you. That illusion is created when you give up control of your time to any external circumstance.

Time Theft happens because:

  1. a lack of clear priorities

  2. a lack of clear boundaries

This means that the solution is both simple and challenging. It's simple in that the strategy is to move the sense of control back to a place where you have agency. It's challenging in that it's not the easiest move to do. There are books just on the locus of control.

We covered this in the workshop, but here's the breakdown:

  • priorities enable focus

  • focus enables discernment of what is NOT in focus

  • discernment enables saying "no" to what is not in focus

  • saying "no" prevents time theft

  • no clear priorities makes it hard to say no…

  • spending MORE TIME on your priorities allows you to draw firmer boundaries. 

The take home: if you want to combat the Theft of Time, then focus on your priorities. It's the highest leverage activity that helps you draw boundaries and recognize what you have control over.

Events

Community

We're going to keep the community free until we reach 100 people. So, jump on in if you want to engage and share your time hacks with your fellow Time Alchemists.