Your Past Is Not Your Future: Overcoming Time Management Regret

Similar to how individuals recovering from addiction can go through a period of depression when they become sober, starting to take positive time management action, can feel worse before it feels better.

How to Break Free

If you allow self-criticism about the past to stall you, you will continue to make choices that lead to regret. However, you can choose to use regret as a positive force in your life and learn what not to do. So when a self-critical thought comes up like, “I really screwed up. I can’t believe how far behind I am on this project,” you can think, “Yes, I’m behind because of my past choices. But I don’t want to get any further behind so I am going to commit the time I can to moving ahead on it now. If I do what I did before, I will only make the situation worse.”

You Feel Unworthy of Having Boundaries

All of us feel guilty from time to time over missed opportunities and to-dos we never got around to. However, guilt may be your prison if you neglect to set boundaries with people because you may have messed up in the past.

So maybe you are doing good work now, but you know that you wasted quite a bit of time last year. You feel guilty for not having met the expectations set for you and worried about being “found out.” Because you feel regret over those time management choices, you answer work phone calls at 10:30 p.m. at night or stay plugged into email all weekend. You don’t feel worthy of honoring your own needs.

What You’re Really Avoiding

In this case, you’re really avoiding conflict, or the potential of it. Because you feel uncomfortable about past events, you allow yourself to be controlled by other people. You want to avoid upsetting them, and to “prove” your worth. You fear setting a boundary and then having them bring up past mistakes, or try to use those mistakes as leverage against you today.

How to Break Free

Once you’ve made things as right as possible from the past, you are free to leave the jail of regret and to move on. You have the right to decide what is or is not good for you, and a little conflict now to take control of your time will save you even more conflict later. You must have the courage to set boundaries to make wise time management choices in the present and to have a sustainable, healthy lifestyle in the future.

Why Freedom is Worth the Cost

Dealing with all of these will likely cause some emotional pain in the short-term. There may be a few days, weeks, or even months, depending on the severity of the circumstances, where it really hurts. But on the other side is the freedom to manage and control your own time without worrying about the expectations of others, or being chained to your own emotional demands.

The only way to be who you desire to be and do what you desire to do is to break free.

Elizabeth Grace Saunders is a time management coach and the author of “The 3 Secrets to Effective Time Investment, How to Invest Your Time Like Money, and Divine Time Management.” She is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review and Fast Company.