Your Time Cannot Be Restored. Are You Spending It Like It Can?

There's a particular kind of exhaustion that doesn't come from doing too much. It comes from spending all of yourself in one direction and having nothing left for the rest.

I spent years in a career where 8 to 12 hours of my day belonged to someone else. And not just my time but also my energy (the distinction matters). I got paid, but the real cost was my capacity to give back to myself, my family, my community. When I wasn't at the office, I was home doing my other job. Cooking, cleaning, parenting, managing appointments, the animals, the groceries. By the end of most days, the only thing I had left in me was a glass of wine and dissociating in front of reality TV. And no judgment, not on myself, not on anyone else living that way. That's the system we live in.

We are handed a script early: your value lives in your productivity, your title and your income and how relentlessly you keep moving. And there aren't many safety nets, which makes it genuinely scary to step off the path set in front of you. The fear is real, and it's built into the system we live in.

But this way of living is making us tired, depressed and sick. When there's no room for creativity, rejuvenation, or play, the body keeps score. The nervous system doesn't get to recover and we run ourselves to the edge and call it normal because everyone around us is doing the same thing.

And we're passing it down. Many of us are raising kids who are already feeling the weight of productivity culture, and they haven't even left high school yet. They're burned out before they've had a chance to figure out who they are. Which raises a harder question: what are we modeling? Are we showing them that their time is valuable? That their body belongs to them? That they are more than the output they produce?

I have a question. Set aside what you have to do. Remove money from the equation for a moment. If you look at how you're actually spending your time and energy, does it feel soul-quenching?

The Four Pillars (That Productivity Culture Forgot to Mention)

This topic has been on my mind a lot lately, as I'm working to consciously balance my time while stepping onto a new life path. I'm a recovering workaholic, and falling back into old patterns is so easy to do. Grind and drive until the money comes. Worry constantly. Wear yourself out until you need a vacation, and then dread going back because of everything you missed while you were gone. And let's be honest, you were never fully gone anyway, because you had to check work email.

I took a day recently to enjoy nature, celebrate a friend's birthday, just play. And I had to remind myself a couple of times that I no longer work for anyone but myself, that I fully own my time, and that I deserved that day without worrying about anything other than what was right in front of me. The balance of work, rest, pray and play keeps me grounded, joyful and energetic. Working all the time pulls me out of my authenticity and into stress and depression.

A few years back, when I was feeling really overwhelmed and out of balance, I had a mentor recommend that I begin tracking my time so I could see just how I was spending it clearly. She recommended four categories, which seem to be pretty well known as the four pillars:

Work: productive effort, tasks with output, things you're doing for others or for income

Rest: not sleep, but actual recovery during your waking hours. Stillness. Doing nothing without guilt.

Pray: whatever that looks like for you. Reflection, meditation, time in nature. The inner life.

Play: hobbies, movement, creativity, anything that has no purpose other than your own enjoyment

This is waking life we're talking about. Sleep is its own category, and we all need it. But rest doesn't stop there. The hours we're awake matter too, and most of us have never once looked at how we're actually spending them.

When I mapped it out, I found I was almost entirely working. Not just my business, but the household management, the caregiving labor, all of it. And play was nearly nonexistent. I don't think of that as a personal failing, by the way, but it is what happens when you're running a life inside a culture that doesn't value rest or play or interior life. By midlife, a lot of us have genuinely forgotten how to play.

Some Seasons Demand More. But Are You Still in That Season?

Some seasons of life demand more. A new baby, a sick parent, a financial crisis. Those are real, and I don't diminish them. But the question I'd ask is whether you're allowing a season of restoration to follow. Or whether you've been in "that season" for fifteen years without noticing.

Here's the Unsexy, Actually Useful Place to Begin

In my quest for balance I made a simple Google Sheet and tracked my time across the four categories for one week to see where I was actually landing. Then I adjusted from there. The practice has allowed me to purposefully spend my time in a very balanced way. I don't experience the Sunday scaries anymore. I don't feel guilty when I'm painting or lounging or walking around the forest (these are required), and I have a lot of capacity when it comes time to be productive because I've purposefully decided to do so.

Even if you have a demanding job, small children, or circumstances that don't flex easily right now, there's something worth knowing about where your time is going. Because unlike almost anything else in your life, time cannot be restored. It can't be earned back or made up for later. It's spent, and then it's gone.

We live in a system that ties our value to our output, our title, our pay. But we have a choice in how we participate, and more importantly, how we spend each precious hour we have here. I'm not perfect at it. But I'm conscious of it. And if this is something you'd like to explore, I'd love to explore it with you. Energy work, intuitive coaching, psilocybin therapy. It's all here.

Feel free to set up a discovery call if you're so called. I'd love to connect.