Qwhen we talk about time we live a paradox: we can do it more and more in less time, but we never have time. Urgency has become the norm. Rethink time at work means move from the logic of reaction to that of rhythm, protect spaces for thought and regeneration. Harmonize Kronos and Kairos it will be one managerial competence of the future: knowing choose the right tempo and rhythm e train the ability to slow down like new form of lucidity and sustainable well-being.
“I’d like one reflection on the concept of TIME at work. It seems to me that, just as we multiply the possibilities of doing more in less time (also thanks to Artificial Intelligence and technology), the perception is that of never having time and above all that everything is one continued urgencya chasing deadlines and fill diaries. How can we experience our relationship with time differently today? And how is it possible to restore value to it, considering it not only a productive resource but also an asset for our balance and also for the quality of relationships? Martina.”
The answer from Monica Magri, work expert
Dear Martina,
introduce a topic that profoundly affects our daily lives: the time is today one of the more paradoxical dimensions of organizational modernity.
We live immersed in a condition of hyper-accelerationWhere efficiency and speed have become implicit synonyms of value. Yet, never before have we perceived time as insufficient, fragmented, on the run. Too often we treat it like one production variable to be optimizedrather than as one existential space where identities, relationships and learning are built.
This generates a misalignment between the time of the organizationwho asks reactivity and performance and the internal time of peoplewhich would need pauses, reflections and depth.
From “time management” to the culture of time
For decades we have been talking about time managementunderstood as optimization of your days to make every hour “productive”. Today this logic shows its limits: managing time doesn’t mean filling it but educate people and organizations to consider time as an ecosystemmade of rhythm, alternations, pauses and presence.
This is where a real game is played cultural revolution: recognize that there can and must be moments without apparent activitysuspension spaces, of what I like to call “fertile void”. These moments are not useless – on the contrary – they are necessary to regenerate energy and fuel creativity and intuition. In this passage managers have a crucial responsibility: they must learn to tolerate the voida Don’t fill every gap with activity ea experience these spaces as a resource. Only in this way will they be able to become credible models of a new, more sustainable and aware culture of time.
But how can we restore the right meaning to time in organizations?
Slowing down at work: from the urgency model to the pace model
Let’s start from a fundamental concept: not everything can be urgent. If everything is, it means it is there a management problem or chronic organizational dysfunction. When everything is urgent, nothing really matters. To find balance you need alternate intense phases and decompression phasesit is necessary think in cycles, not in urgencies: switch between one reactive logic to one rhythmic planning logic. This change of perspective allows people to recover energy and quality of thoughtgiving back meaning and value to working time.
Some concrete examples:
- Introduction of a 15-minute buffer automatic between meetings, to create micro-decompression breaks.
- After periods of peak work, experiment “slow weeks” to promote recovery and learning.
- Days or half days dedicated to deep workfor deep and uninterrupted concentration activities.
The result? Superior quality work and one less perception of fragmented time.
Train the culture of priority, not availability
There leadership must protect team time, not fill it. It’s useful train managers to collective time management, teaching them to create contexts in which it is possible to breathe and thinknot just execute. It’s fundamental make it legitimate to say “not now”, introducing practices that allow you to postpone without feeling guilty. AND shift the focus from presence times to the results generated: from the amount of “time spent” to the “value created”. Virtuous examples:
- The “Right to Disconnect” adopted by companies that Limit sending emails after hours.
- Leadership programs that teach distinguish real emergencies from “organizational noise”.
- Visual tools used in teams for identify strategic activities and let go of low ones impactreducing cognitive overload: they make postponement an act of responsibility and choice, not of inefficiency.
Cultivate a culture of conscious slowness
To restore value to time we need a new organizational literacy and a clear change in mentality: recognize that the quality of shared time is as much a strategic resource as efficiency. Any organization can introduce ritualized moments of conscious pause — five minutes of individual reflection before a strategy meeting, an emotional check-in, demonstrating that slowing down can increase clarity and productivity. Likewise the practices of slow leadership they testify one new idea of managerialism: the one who knows create space, not just fill it.
Finally we need a new one personal time education: organizational coaching or counseling programs, mindfulness workshops that help people recognize their own rhythm and to go from “I never have time” to “I have control over my time”.
Kronos and Kairos: two times to be reconciled at work
Let’s go back to classical culture to find inspiration. The Greeks distinguished two ways of experiencing time: Kronos and Kairos.
Kronos it is chronological time, linear, inexorable. It is time that devours itself like the god who, in mythology, devours his own children. At work it’s time for deadlinesperformance, measurement.
A necessary time but which, if it becomes the only possible one, transforms urgency into habit.
Kairos it is instead the time of opportunity: the right moment, the full moment in which things happen because we are present. It is the time of intuition of creativityit is not programmed, it is recognised.
Kairos, the Greeks say, he has a tuft on his forehead and a shaved nape: you can only grab him by the hair when he passes in front of you because as soon as he goes further you can no longer hold him. It is a powerful image: it reminds us how fleeting and precious the time of meaning is.
Harmonizing Kronos and Kairos becomes a crucial managerial and cultural skill, the way to regain strategic clarity and sustainable well-being in the long run.
Who is Monica Magri
I am an expert in the world of work and I have been observing its changes for over twenty-five years. I work in human resources, I am a coach and passionate about training and individual development: I love weaving together this knowledge to accompany people and organizations in understanding transformations, finding new meanings and moving through change with confidence and clarity.
Lexicon of the new work is a weekly question and answer space dedicated to those who want to orient themselves in a rapidly evolving world of work. Through key words, reflections and concrete cases, this column offers ideas for interpreting current challenges, discovering new meanings and training a more aware gaze on transformations. Knowing and decoding the new rules of work means knowing how to read the complexity, orient yourself clearly and act more effectively.
You can write to me at [email protected] for questions or suggestions: this column aims to be a useful space for discussion to build together new tools for reading and action in the world of work and personal growth.