In my last article ‘The Hidden Costs of Urgency & Overload in the Workplace’, we explored the hidden costs of urgency and overload in the built environment. Deadlines and shrinking timeframes drive our projects, but they also drain focus, erode wellbeing, and strain relationships. We asked: what are we actually prioritising, and at what cost?
This week, we go deeper, from urgency to meaning. If the way we measure and manage time was born in the factory era, is it still serving us today? What might it look like to move from mechanistic timekeeping to meaningful rhythms that restore focus, trust, and long-term performance?
Measurement & Consequence
In property and construction we have incredible skills that move us, materials, and our environments from idea to tangible outcome or built form. We have accomplished this great feat through measuring time so we can count it, or commercialise it. I have worked in organisations that have apps and software that track the time spent actively working in programs on your computer. Others which track your time by how full your calendar is and how you are spending your time. Both scenarios, when used in isolation, are absent of trust and strong relationships where we make it ‘easier’ to extract the information we want to measure than engage to understand the intricacies of what’s happening and why.
Hilary Cottam speaks about this in her book, The Work We Need: A 21st Century Reimagining, “The extraordinary investments in ‘little tech’, the surveillance apps that now police work and workers – from the home to the warehouse and the office – have further dehumanized dan intensified many forms of work.” (1) Perhaps it’s because we leaders don’t have time, or worse, it might mean we ourselves, or our systems need to change. And that is uncomfortable as it asks us to change something that has been, or still is serving us. Instead we need to find ways to merge the data and relationships to not just know, but integrate our knowledge to improve the relationships and systems.
I have been measuring my days by how much I was able to fit in since I can remember. It was like a mini competition with myself to prove how valuable I was by how many balls I could juggle at once without dropping. I think it’s safe to say that we’ve all experienced a work day when we are in full firefighting mode. Cortisol levels rise, we forget to eat or use the bathroom, all other responsibilities take the backseat while we fixate on the task at hand. Time is then experienced as pressure and stress takes the wheel. These are the days we stay late at the office and on the way home we call our partner and they say with disappointment: “great, so I’ll have to reschedule my appointment.” Gut punch. We prioritised work over the people that matter most to us. It’s likely this isn’t the first time either. Maybe you can relate?
What does Valuing Time Look Like?
When it comes to what folks are really seeking from time in our industry, here’s what I’m gathering from recent conversations with industry leaders:
- Control & Autonomy We want to feel in charge of our time, rather than at the mercy of endless meetings, emails, and external demands.
- Value & Impact It’s not about clocking hours but making sure the time we invest actually moves the needle (on projects, teams, strategy). We hate wasted time.
- Clarity & Priorities Many of us feel stretched thin. What’s most important is being able to cut through noise and direct time toward high-value, high-purpose work. (Yay for AI integration!)
- Balance & Restoration We crave time that restores us (with family, in nature, for ourselves) so that we can show up well at work. Without this, burnout looms.
- Legacy & Long-Term Thinking In industries like property and construction where projects outlive careers (how incredible is this?), we professionals want our time to add up to something that meaningful that lasts, not just the firefighting it took to build it.
Henri Bergson’s book discusses this distinction between mechanical time and lived duration through the two faces of time. Objective time (watches, calendars, and time tables) and Lived time (felt, lived, and acted). The objective time is described as mechanical, segmented and narrow. Lived time is characterised by fluidity, indivisibility and broadness. (2)
We cannot throw objective time out the window, nor can we dive fully into lived time only. The question becomes, how might we merge both objective and lived time in the workplace?
Before we dive into the how to make time meaningful, it’s important to setup the context from our history that shapes how and why we measure time today.
Our History of Time Measurement in the Workplace
As a society, we have been tracking hours worked for over 300 years in a system that we still use today, despite significant external changes. Here’s a snapshot:
- 1700s – 18th Century through bells and whistles, ledgers, and roll calls.
- 1800s – 19th Century through sign-in books, manual checklists until invention of the mechanical time recorder where neutral machine replaces human oversight in 1888.
- 1900s – 20th Century through mechanical and electronic systems.
- 2000s – 21st Century through electronic, biometric, mobile, and AI time systems.
- Note – before the 18th Century, time was tied to tasks, seasons, or daylight. Payment was determined by output or long-term agreements. Sounds rhythmic and dare I say it, human.
The term “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” comes to mind when I absorb this information as a knee jerk reaction. However, in reflection, I think we have to be honest with ourselves and acknowledge that this approach no longer applies when the environment has changed. You wouldn’t use a horse and carriage to get to work in the city today because the environment no longer caters for it. This doesn’t mean the horse or the carriage are broken, they’re healthy and functional, but the environment we’ve constructed of highways and speed is no longer safe for them to operate.
What is odd is that as a society we are completely happy to use a time based linear measurement system that was designed 300 years ago to serve factories, manufacturing, and a global population of around 600-700 million people even though the way we work has evolved and diversified, and more significantly our population has grown to 8.23 billion people (an increase of 1200% or 14x < that is not a typo!).
Our world is too fast, too big, and too complex to keep navigating as we have in the 18th Century when systems were linear like a production line. Hilary Cottam says it clearly: ‘The reality its hat we are unlikely to solve our complex current predicaments within these old and narrow ways of thinking.’ (1) I can’t help but wonder what would it be like if we integrate the cyclical approach, creating KPI’s that value outcome and quality of our work while working with time, programs and the like, rather than against it?
Focus – A Lever for Shifting to Meaningful Time
So what’s stopping us? Distraction.
Distraction is bountiful in this time of crisis. We are drawn towards it because it provides brief solace and reprieve from the severity and harshness of the noisy world we live in. To cope we numb ourselves with these distractions and by numbing ourselves we cut off our source of attention and understanding – our focus.
When leaders tell me they don’t have time to tweak their systems, I remind them that it’s not about lack of time, it’s about lack of focus.
Let’s explore how we can shift our focus across the individual, organisational, and systems levels within our own environments to increase alignment.
Personal Focus
At a personal level we are experiencing time as identity and resource. Here are some ways to reframe our current patterns:
Scarcity Mindset
Most of us feel there’s never enough time. Time scarcity fuels stress, guilt, and reactive decision-making. → Reframe to where you choose to focus your time. Note that choosing includes in co-creation, not just solo.
Productivity vs. Presence
We measure worth by output, but often long for more presence (with family, in nature, or with their teams). → Know your values (individuals and orgs) and align your behaviours and actions to them.
Autonomy & Control
The sense of owning our time is deeply tied to psychological safety and wellbeing. Lack of autonomy breeds frustration. → Know what is in your control and what is not. Incorporate boundaries and protect them.
Restorative Time
We increasingly recognise the need for downtime, but often treat it as optional rather than essential. → Instead, prioritise recovery like a professional athlete.
Organisational Focus
At an organisational level, we experience time as currency. An exchange or transaction. Below are some approaches to redirect our habits:
Efficiency vs. Effectiveness
Organisations prize efficiency (billable hours, deadlines), but professionals know effectiveness (strategic impact, trust, quality) matters more in the long run. → Instead, rewarding behaviour, alignment with values, and outcomes.
Time = Cost
In property and construction, time is literally money (delays mean penalties, overruns, strained relationships). Leaders constantly trade off short-term delivery in lieu of long-term trust. → Relationships, trust, and reputation are also assets that can also be measured while delivering resilience and long-term impact.
Meeting & Email Overload
Time drains are a universal pain point. Many feel their best hours are hijacked by low-value activities. → Leaders are now choosing to re-design how they use email or integrate AI for low-value activities, giving their people time back for more creative, relational (human), and big picture activities.
Cultural Signals
How time is treated inside organisations (e.g., rewarding long hours, punishing breaks, valuing speed over depth) signals what the culture really values. → Re-visiting values and purpose are key to redirecting behaviours and rewards. *Take it up a notch: Organisations where employees can tie their personal values to the organisations are leading change.
Systems Focus
At a systemic level, we are experiencing time as a lens through which we interpret, structure, and prioritise life, work, and action.
Linear vs. Cyclical Time
The industry is steeped in mechanistic, linear time (“milestones, deadlines, programmes”), but the reality of projects, nature, and humans is more cyclical and adaptive. → Have a go with cyclical time in your own organisation by tracking when individuals/teams feel most focused, creative, or drained across a week or month. Experiment with aligning deep work, collaboration, and rest to those rhythms instead of forcing 9–5 uniformity.
Short-Termism vs. Legacy
Many leaders feel trapped by quarterly reporting, yet crave contributing to something enduring (projects, places, communities). → I’ve helped organisations blend the security of data with values alignment through industry collaboration and co-creation, calendars, and scheduled off-sites for giving back and team building.
Speed vs. Sustainability
Faster is often rewarded, but regenerative practice requires patience, reflection, and slower cycles. → It’s not a matter of one or the others, but integrating both into a rhythm that works for you, your clients, and your organisation’s ecosystem.
Time Horizons
Professionals are caught between firefighting in the present and trying to carve out thinking space for long-term strategic impact. → Schedule in focused strategy time like you do your weekly team meeting. Having an accountability partner like a coach or consultant adds value as they contribute a broad, external perspective.
So, what do meaningful hours look like at work?
From what we’ve learned above, this isn’t about abstract wellbeing. It’s about whether your team has the focus to deliver quality work, the trust to stay through tough phases, and the clarity to align their time with your purpose. Simple.
🛠️ Next week, we’ll get practical. In this month’s final newsletter, we’ll look at how leaders and organisations in the built environment are already experimenting with making time count. From outcome-based measures to data-informed practices that protect focus and build trust. Real-world examples, ready to borrow.
Field Notes
(Reflections & Observations)
- Time as Surveillance → Apps & trackers extract activity but miss trust, nuance, and relationship.
- Little Tech, Big Consequence → Surveillance software dehumanises work while avoiding deeper system change.
- Self-Worth Measured in Busyness → Filling days = proof of value; firefighting feels productive but drains connection.
- Objective vs. Lived Time → Clocks and calendars are mechanical; lived time is fluid, embodied, relational. Both matter.
- Inherited Systems → Our time-tracking practices are 300 years old, built for factories and a population 14x smaller than today.
- Obsolete Tools in a New World → We wouldn’t ride a horse on a freeway; why cling to factory-era time systems?
- What Leaders Really Want → Autonomy, impact, clarity, balance, and legacy — not just speed or efficiency.
- Cultural Signals → How an organisation treats time reveals what it truly values (speed, hours, depth, people).
- Linear vs. Cyclical → Projects and people don’t always fit the straight line of programmes; rhythms can be designed differently.
- Focus as Lever → It’s not about lack of time. It’s about lack of focus and attention in a noisy world.
- Meaningful Hours → Quality work, trust through hard phases, alignment with purpose.
References
Bergson, H. (1910). Time and free will: An essay on the immediate data of consciousness (F. L. Pogson, Trans.). George Allen & Unwin. (Original work published 1889) ↩
Cottam, H. (2024). The work we need: A 21st century reimagining. Penguin Press. ↩
