Most people live in a quiet tug-of-war with time.
They rush so they won’t be late…
Or arrive late after rushing anyway.
And if you listen closely, you’ll hear a familiar refrain almost everywhere:
“I wish I had more time.”
But here is something worth noticing…
People don’t experience time the same way.
In fact, there is a direct relationship between the impact of your work… and how far ahead you naturally see.
In his book The Time Trap, Alec McKenzie revealed a fascinating pattern. Let me share it with you in simple terms:
Workers tend to see one day ahead.
“What do I have to do tomorrow?”
Supervisors look about a week ahead.
Team leaders extend that view to a month.
Middle managers think in quarters.
Senior managers plan a year ahead.
A CEO sees across several years.
A visionary stretches across decades.
And a sage… thinks in centuries.
Giordano Bruno saw clearly that humanity would only catch up to his understanding hundreds of years later.
Now here’s the part that makes this truly useful…
No matter what you do for a living, all of these roles live within you.
At times you are the worker, focused on today and tomorrow.
At other moments, you are the CEO… or even the visionary of your own life.
Some of these capacities are well developed. Others are quietly dormant.
What determines which one shows up?
Your priorities.
When you act on what truly matters most to you, your highest priorities, something remarkable happens…
Your time horizon expands.
You begin to think more strategically.
You plan with realism.
You act with clarity and focus.
But when you drift into low-priority actions…
Your world shrinks to the immediate.
You look for quick relief, easy wins, shortcuts.
And often, you pay for them later.
So the real question is not, “How do I get more time?”
It is: “What deserves my time most?”
Answer that well… and time begins to work with you instead of against you.
Love and Wisdom,
Monica and Stefan
