Being time poor

(Nimue)

When I reviewed Sarah-Beth Watkins’ book, I talked briefly about time poverty. Someone queried this as a concept so I thought it would be worth writing a post about it.

There are plenty of people who don’t have enough time for things because they manage their time badly and could do better. That’s not what I mean by the term ‘time poverty’. It also isn’t my term, I’ve seen it in use in other places. Being time-poor isn’t a choice or something easily fixed.

Some neurodivergent people really struggle to manage their time. ADHD is particularly a source of this, but difficulties with executive function are an issue for a lot of people. If organising your time is technically very difficult for you then that can limit your options.

Time-poverty is likely to go with economic poverty. When you don’t have much money you often have to do things the slow way – if you need to go to a library to access a computer to hunt for jobs this is going to use up a lot of time compared to someone who can job search from a home computer. If you have to buy your clothes second hand then hunting through charity shops for things that are suitable takes a lot more time than buying new.

If you are working minimum wage jobs, then you won’t be earning enough to live comfortably. If you’re working multiple jobs to make ends meet, you will be time-poor. Long, unavoidable commutes create time-poverty. Not being able to afford to live where you work causes massive problems for many people.

Time-poverty also goes hand in hand with illness and with caring roles. Being ill takes up a lot of time. It slows you down. If you have a lot of medical appointments, that takes time. Managing a condition can involve a lot of daily work. Caring for someone else also takes time. If you are both a parent and working full time the odds are that you are time-poor and have little time to spend purely on yourself. If you are caring for children and one of them is ill, or your partner is ill, or you have to look after your parents as well, you will be time-poor.

You can’t time-manage your way out of this. You can’t be better organised enough to offset the impact of working two jobs or having multiple caring roles. A person can be in an adequate financial state but also time-poor, and that particular kind of poverty has a huge impact on your mental health, even if your physical needs are all being met. We all need time to ourselves and time for the things that make us happy. We all need rest time and downtime, but not everyone has that, or has enough of it.