When Time Runs Short: The "Time‑Debt Spiral"

Many people find themselves running short on time at various points in their lives. Cutting our sleep short - with coffee or other means - only leads to a "time‑debt spiral".

When it feels like we never have enough time, it’s easy to slide into that spiral. Picture yourself walking into the bank to buy a new apartment. You sign the mortgage papers with excitement - this will be your home! - only to discover cracked walls, outdated wiring, and floors in desperate need of repair. What do you do? You take out another loan for renovations. Then a third, because you’re running out of time, rushing and scrambling… all the while watching your debt grow larger.

That’s exactly how it works with our time.

We stay up later and later, promising ourselves "just one more email." In the morning, coffee becomes our new alarm clock so we don’t sleep through the day. Yet the fatigue lingers, as if an invisible weight is pressing on our shoulders. Tasks pile up because we work more slowly. So we grab another coffee and keep calling clients late into the night - and the spiral pulls us down even deeper.

So where’s the way out? The real solution isn’t drinking more coffee or writing longer to‑do lists. The key is respecting our own sleep–wake cycles. We all operate on different rhythms: some of us hit our stride at dawn, while others are most productive in the afternoon.

Notice when you feel truly refreshed, and schedule your toughest challenges for those peak hours.

Work with your body, not against it. If your system signals a need for a two‑hour break, give it a short rest—try breathing exercises or a walk outdoors.

Just as we avoid falling into the bank’s debt trap by carefully weighing how much we can realistically borrow, we must treat our time with the same caution. Don’t take on unnecessary “time loans”! When we align our day with our biological clock, we not only feel more rested and focused—we also lift the burden of “time debt” off our shoulders.

That way, we don’t just survive the day—we truly enjoy our time.

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