This month’s topic is time. More specifically, our relationship with time, and how leaders in the built environment can reshape it to serve rather than deplete.
In 2018 I noticed that my own relationship with time was broken. Somewhere along the line of becoming an adult, a professional, a daughter, a friend, a partner, a mother, and community member, time became a source of anxiety. Time felt restrictive and my use of it unrealistic in allocation. I never had enough of it. The time I did have, I was trying to squeeze every minute out of every day thinking that my busyness would lead to fulfillment. When this left me feeling empty I questioned how I was using it, for what, and why. I’ve noticed this suffocating re-occurring pattern in the systems we’ve created not just for ourselves, but for our teams, and organisations too.
Responsibility with Boundaries
In construction and property, “responsibility” often translates into holding everything together: keeping clients satisfied, projects on track, and teams motivated. But carrying it all alone is costing leaders more than they realise.
Safe Work Australia reports that psychological injury claims cost nearly five times more than physical ones and take over 37 weeks of recovery on average (1). Behind every statistic are leaders silently absorbing pressure — missing family milestones, sacrificing sleep, and pushing through exhaustion.
One associate in an engineering firm put it bluntly:
“I’m praised for being reliable, but really, I just don’t know how to say no.”
Ouch. You can feel the opposing forces at play when we are rewarded for the very thing that’s causing misalignment and fatigue.
Responsibility without boundaries doesn’t just burn people out — it undermines the very performance leaders are trying to protect. What if true responsibility meant modelling limits as much as delivering results?
Industry Snapshot
It is essential to first recognise how this plays out in our industry daily. Here’s a snapshot of the time-related pressures many of us face every day:
Project Timeline Pressures:
- Compressed design phases due to client urgency, leading to rushed decision-making
- Time lost waiting for approvals from councils, planning authorities, or regulatory bodies
- Delays from consultants or contractors that cascade through the entire project timeline
- Unrealistic client expectations about how long quality design actually takes
- Fast-track projects that sacrifice thoroughness for speed
Work-Life Balance Issues:
- Extended periods of overtime during project crunch phases, especially before major deadlines or submissions
- Weekend work becoming routine rather than exceptional
- Difficulty taking actual holiday time due to project commitments or personal values
- The “always on” culture with clients expecting immediate responses
- Missing family events, social occasions, or personal milestones due to work demands
Time Challenges:
- The stop-start nature of projects creating feast-or-famine workload cycles
- Long gaps between project phases where teams are in limbo
- Time spent on unpaid proposal work and pitches with no guaranteed outcome (did someone say design competitions?)
- Extensive documentation and compliance requirements eating into design time
- Coordination meetings that multiply as project complexity increases
- Rework time due to changing client requirements or design iterations
- The mental load of juggling multiple projects at different phases simultaneously
Career & Organisational Time Issues:
- Career progression timelines being unclear or extremely long
- Time invested in continuing professional development while maintaining full workloads
- Administrative burden of timesheets, project reporting, and business development activities
These pressures aren’t abstract. They have real consequences for individuals, teams, and organisations. And the urgency is only increasing as the world around us grows more complex and unpredictable.
Experiment with How You Use Time
Time is predominantly treated as the ultimate scarcity in construction: the faster you deliver, the stronger your reputation. But this mechanistic view, as if time is a commodity to control conveniently overlooks its deeper impact on people.
Research from Deloitte shows over half of workers cite unmanageable workloads as a primary driver of stress (2). Yet studies by Harvard Business Review also reveal that rest and recovery directly fuel creativity and productivity (3). Stillness, paradoxically, is often the most efficient path forward.
As one senior architect admitted after a sabbatical:
“I came back with more clarity in three months off than I’d had in three years of 60-hour weeks.”
If we want to reclaim time in this industry, it’s not about working faster — it’s about working with time, not against it.
Wherever you may be on your journey, it is my intention that you find one thing to take away with you and integrate into your own relationship with time. It’s not make or break, it’s about testing and trialing what does and doesn’t work, adapting it to suit your development and the changing environment around you.
Just because we might get a good day, week, or month where we’ve found flow doesn’t mean we will never experience the challenges. I still find myself slipping into working against time and sacrificing important things like sleep when I feel the pressure (maybe even for this newsletter…). The important thing here is that we notice and adjust our choices as necessary.
Field Notes
(Reflections & Observations)
“Once you stop pretending that you’ll ever be able to make time for everything, you can finally start making time for what counts.” — Oliver Burkeman’s Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals
- When we don’t prioritise meaningful and rest time, our health and wellbeing suffer.
- Given this is the first week of spring in Australia, it’s worth reminding ourselves that trees don’t rush their growth. In spring, they bud. In summer, they expand. In autumn, they shed. In winter, they rest. Each phase is necessary, none is skipped, and each unfolds at its own pace. Humans, by contrast, often demand “summer output” (growth, productivity, expansion) all year round, forgetting that rest and renewal are part of the cycle. A healthy relationship with time is recognising that we, like trees, need seasons — not constant acceleration.
- The reality: a relationship with time is like any other that needs time, presence, and rest to flourish.
Practices
(Explore, Reflect, Experiment)
I invite you to reflect on your own experience of time scarcity.
- Notice one area where your time feels squeezed this week.
- What could change if you slowed down?
Recommended Reading
📘 The Work We Need – A 21st Century Reimagining by Hillary Cottam. This book is a rallying cry with practical principles for creating human-centered work. An inspiring, science-backed, and playful guide for how to work awake.
References
- Safe Work Australia (2024), Key Work Health and Safety Statistics Australia 2024, Safe Work Australia ↩
- Dr. Jay Bhatt, Jen Fisher, and Colleen Bordeaux (2023), The workforce well-being imperative. Paving the way for human sustainability in workplace culture, Deloitte ↩
- Christopher M. Barnes (2018), Sleep Well, Lead Better, Harvard Business Review Magazine (September-October 2018) ↩
A PERSONAL NOTE
When I went out on my own, I set myself a goal to write a newsletter monthly as a way to explore my lived experiences, what I am learning and observing, offer connection and practical tools for those of us figuring out the systems we operate in. This is my second article and I am struggling to pull my learnings into a clear, cohesive story. It feels like pushing a square peg into a round hole and everything in my body is saying it doesn’t feel right. So, I’m listening to my body, and the wisdom of a colleague in regenerative systems who reminded me this week that if I want leaders, teams, and organisations to embrace regenerative practice, then I myself need to be regenerative. This challenges me to my core, and the urge to push through, spend more time polishing and clarifying until it meets a certain ‘standard’ before my words are ready to meet your eyes and thoughts. Not today. Today, regeneration in practice is me sharing my unpolished thoughts. Raw and unfettered. Broken into segments. Take what you need, leave what you don’t. It’s part of the journey.
