“When I wake up, I’m already late.” why do we have this feeling of being depressed in the morning?

Etienne Klein wears a watch on each wrist, is preparing for a conference in Switzerland and has arranged to meet us at the train station under the watch. Suffice it to say that time (of which he is an expert) inhabits and surrounds him. To the point of overwhelming him? “Time,” the philosopher immediately decides, “is what prevents us from being present in the present.” His definition, which is deliberately strict and restrictive, seems to condense the era. In one sentence, he describes this sense of urgency and constant urgency that pervades our days. The way we approach or navigate 2023 is rarely positive. We miss it, we wish we had more, it slips through our fingers… The to-do lists are endlessly extended, the demand for immediacy is everywhere, our tasks, like our thoughts, overlap and intersect, hence this feeling of doing a thousand things at once and thus always being “on delay”.

Congestion and dispersion

Have we all read (or heard) much about the White Rabbit imagined by Lewis Carroll? Alice in Wonderland declare “I don’t have time to say goodbye, I’m late, I’m late” until you find your crazy and absurd race “normal” or acceptable. The invasion of digital technology into our lives has led us to what Klein calls a “multiple gift dominance.” He explains. “I’m here with you, but I could be doing a number of other things at the same time that would interfere with that moment. ” Read this article that just appeared on his phone screen, send an email to the research lab he runs, search on Google Maps how many meters his hotel is from the Neuchatel station where he gets off… “Dispersion is the key element : overloading our schedule and often the source of our delays,” he says. The promise of solving many more problems from our phones or computers is actually time-consuming. And this is not about bad organization. “The rate at which we receive the flow of data every day is remarkable,” he continues.

Our brains can’t handle it. That’s what motivated author Jonathan Curiel to write Fast ! The new tyranny of immediacy or the urgency to slow down (Éditions Plon, 2020). Beyond a personal observation that makes him regret not even taking the time to listen to his messages, he, who is also M6’s Deputy Chief Program Officer, has not learned, despite years of media experience, that this. the field has turned into a place of speed and acceleration, a “continuous, almost epileptic flow” of information, where one news chases another. Will time move faster than us today? “First of all,” he laments, “the speed now affects all layers of society. “From the political sphere to personal life, and, of course, and first of all, the world of work, the pace is accelerating everywhere. And hyperactivity hides. “You only need to look at how much it has been fully incorporated into the language codes of the company,” he emphasizes. “I’m under water”, “totally exhausted”, “full for the next month” or even “apnoea”… How many formulas are there to show that we have too much work? he asks. Has being overwhelmed become the norm? Social status. Mark of distinction.

Lack of time causes disappointment in us. We are disappointed because we believe in happiness and we don’t want to spoil anything

Etienne Klein

A rewarding virtue

It is, in any case, a “super-stimulator” to which good students quickly become addicted… “When you have a great capacity for work, this overflowing feeling has an unusual side; full-time jobs…” quips Chayne Lantzman, founder of Woman Impact coaching company. There is nothing more rewarding than experiencing the feeling of being efficient, of being ‘unstoppable’ when you do something quickly and well. “, the coach continues. It would even be a way to seek recognition… “But without recognition, we die. Therefore, we will gradually begin to structure our time according to the realization that our actions can bring us. »

In the economic world, where everyone is judged on their reactivity, the accumulation of urgent tasks, last-minute missions, in addition to their usual workload, will even become the safest way to get it. Women between the ages of 30 and 45, who juggle their careers while caring for children and often suffer from a lack of self-confidence at work, are ideal targets for this hoarding trend. Pauline is one of them. “When I wake up, I’m already late because I do too many things and I never had enough twenty-four hours the day before to finish them,” explains the producer of this film. I sometimes feel nostalgic for my time in detention when, despite the tense atmosphere, I no longer had social requests and much more time to work on my projects in the long run. I know this perfectly well, and yet when these requests are made, I am the first one not to oppose them. »

(Re)spend time

“It’s an existential excitement,” explains Etienne Klein. When you’re overwhelmed, you feel like you are. “However, sometimes the explosion of the calendar leads to the red zone. “When things are going well, we are productive, we meet deadlines, but when this state lasts and starts when we are already stressed, it becomes counterproductive,” the philosopher continues. And in general, we don’t realize it…” When the adrenaline of overload has passed, “we don’t have time to mature situations, we make the wrong decisions and we can run straight into the wall”, notes China Lanzmann. To avoid the worst and regain the joy of being on time or even ahead, she advises her clients to say no and assign tasks at no extra cost, and “it’s very easy,” she swears.

Can it be that simple? In order to stop suffering from procrastination, we must first accept procrastination, says psychoanalyst and philosophy lecturer Helen L’Hoye. In his work A late praise (Editions Albin Michel, 2020), he even highlights a paradox in line with Blaise Pascal: “Although we think we don’t have enough time and complain about it, our biggest fear is actually having too much,” she explains. So you have to relearn the taste. Fight the urge to reply immediately, giving yourself a slight delay before returning the email. Boredom, finding the unexpected, and putting reading at the heart of this rewriting process will be ways. “Creativity and joy arise in reflection,” he emphasizes. I would even say that accepting the loss of time is the condition of true happiness. Etienne Klein tries to draw a positive conclusion while traveling by train (a little later). “Actually, the lack of time causes disappointment in us. We are disappointed because we believe in happiness and we don’t want to spoil anything. We say to ourselves. “How happy I would be if I could do everything I want to do.” “Abandoning this illusion sets a record in itself…

When you’re overwhelmed, you feel like you are

Etienne Klein

Five tips to “give yourself fresh air”

Delegate anything that is not in the zone of his genius. There are four zones: the zone of incompetence and the zone of competence, which is itself divided into the zone of excellence and the zone of genius, where you are truly the best. The idea is to spend 0% of your time in your zone of incompetence, 20 to 30% in your zone of excellence, and as much as possible in your zone of genius. There we work very well and easily, almost effortlessly.

Understand that we are not better when we do it quickly.

Save in your schedule periods of focused work to go deep into a topic. We hang up the phone, close our door, let them know that we are busy. Ideally twice for three hours or once a week.

Save time for emergencies and the unexpected. For example, block out an hour a day after lunch, year-round, or two hours twice a week. This avoids having to recycle them magic timeas the Anglo-Saxons call it; this time that doesn’t exist…

Take advantage of the time saved relearning how to be forward. Arrive ten minutes before the appointment to have a coffee or a breather, or to introduce the moment quietly to the meeting.