What can I do when I have no time?
No time? Discover how awareness, a simple heart exercise, and small moments of presence can stretch your day — instead of letting it slip away.
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Dear readers,
Do you know the feeling? Both at work and at home, time always seems to be missing — for the very things that matter most to us. I see teams that can’t find a single shared meeting slot for months, and at the same time organizations drowning in an endless flood of meetings where individuals sit bored, glued to their phones. And then there are professions like - for instance - nursing, where the practical work allows no delay — the bed has to be made now, the patient cared for now .
From all these conversations — most recently with an experienced nurse — one insight has matured that I’d like to share with you: The question of time is, at its core, a question of awareness. It isn’t the chaos, it isn’t other people, it isn’t the world that’s to blame for time slipping through our fingers. It’s a call to ourselves to engage differently with the moments we’re given .
Try it once: in the middle of your day, give yourself an inner jolt. Suddenly you straighten up, your eyes clear, a quiet smile arises — you’re awake, present, here. Combine this with the heart exercise I keep recommending from my HeartMath work: breathe a little more slowly, bring your awareness to the area of the heart, breathe in and out through that space, and add a feeling of gratitude, appreciation, or a beautiful memory. A sunset, a kind word, a smile shared between two drivers — that’s all it takes .
These small moments can be woven in anywhere: before you open a patient’s door, while you briefly bend down to your agenda in a meeting and take one or two conscious breaths, or — as a speaker once told me — in those seconds when you turn to the board or flipchart to write. Small islands of presence in the middle of the rush .
Those who wish can go a step further and set up their own time in the morning. I know a department head with great responsibility who calmly says: “I have no stress.” His secret: every day, just after five, he gets up and takes an hour and a half to meditate, read, and simply be with himself. I introduced this myself after a personal crisis and discovered: when I do it, the day goes well. When I don’t, it doesn’t. As simple as that. And it doesn’t have to be ninety minutes — six or ten will do for a start. The catch: you have to go to bed earlier in the evening. It’s the deep sleep before midnight that truly restores you — an ancient wisdom that every smartwatch confirms today .
And one more point, very honestly: social media. For years I was on LinkedIn daily, plus Facebook — always with the feeling that I had to know what my clients were doing. What remained was a hollow aftertaste: everyone smiling, everyone wonderful, and me? At some point I logged off. I didn’t miss it for a second. Real client relationships are formed the old-fashioned way anyway — on a call, on Zoom, in a personal conversation. Take an honest look at how much time you spend there and what you really take away from it .
My bottom line for you: sit up straight, breathe, perceive not only what’s in front of you but everything around you — the whole team, the whole room. As you become more awake, the single moment grows fuller, richer, more alive. And suddenly time expands. The time problem is no longer a problem .
Give it a try. I’d love to hear how it goes for you — until next time.
Warmly,
Your podcast host of Leading with Heart
Alexander Schwedeler
