Time Anxiety and ADHD: Why You Always Feel Behind (ft. Chris Guillebeau)

Chris Guillebeau (00:00)
You can get really good at efficiency without actually being effective. You’re like trying to eke out another 2 % of productivity or something.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (00:09)
Yep.

Chris Guillebeau (00:09)
But what happens is you just, you get better at things and then what’s the outcome? Like if you get better at doing your job, you get more work at your job. Like that’s the reward of being good at your job is they’re like, here’s some more job to do.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (00:22)
Welcome to The Vibe With Ky Podcast., the show where we talk openly and honestly about mental health and the beautiful mess of being an adult in today’s world. My name is Kyrus Keenan Westcott. Thank you so much for being here, my friends. Today we are talking about time anxiety. It’s that constant feeling that you’re behind, like time is running out, and you should be doing something very important right now, even when you you can’t say what that thing is. For me, it looked like sitting in my car.

With 20 free minutes of time, and I did not enjoy a single one of those minutes. Maybe for you, it’s it’s looking at your life and wondering if you already missed your window of opportunities. And for a lot of us with ADHD, that feeling can hit even harder. My guest today is Chris Guillebeau. Chris is a New York Times best-selling author, the host of the daily podcast Side Hustle School.

And the founder of NeuroDiversion, an annual gathering of neurodivergent adults, one that I keynoted at this past year. I had a lot of fun. He is also someone that I am lucky to call a friend. Chris wrote a entire book about this exact feeling of time anxiety. And the name of the book is called.

Time anxiety. And he knows all about it from the inside and out. And in this conversation today, Chris helps us understand why feeling behind isn’t proof that you failed or that you’ve missed your chance. No. He talks about that and he talks about how to stop treating every single day like it’s an emergency. Before we get started, if you want more mental health conversations and resources like this, make sure you visit my website at TheVibeWithKy.com or follow me @TheVibeWithKy on all of your favorite social media platforms.

With that said, my friends, sit back, relax, and enjoy my chat with Chris Guillebeau on The Vibe With Ky Podcast..

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:06)
What’s up, man? What’s up?

Chris Guillebeau (02:08)
What’s up,

Ky? Thank you for that wonderful introduction. I was looking around, was like, who else is in the room? Like, who’s this person you’re talking to? But thank

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:11)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (02:15)
you for that. And super, super excited to be here on the pod. I admire your work so much.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (02:18)
Yeah.

No, I I appreciate you. We’re we’re gonna get we’re gonna get into how we met and how we know each other in a little bit, but I want to start somewhere else first. You’ve been publishing under one line since 2008, I believe it was, and that one line is there is another way. And by every outside measure, the other way for you worked. Every country that you’ve that you’ve been to before, you know, you turn 35, you have best selling books.

You you’ve had ten years of of gatherings in in Portland, like we were talking about talking about right before this. And then and then you turn around and you write a whole book about the fear that time is running out. So walk me through the first time that you noticed that feeling that like sitting in you while everything

on the

Chris Guillebeau (03:06)
Okay.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:07)
outside looked like it was working.

Chris Guillebeau (03:09)
Yeah, okay. There’s several things there. I think the first thing that I was like taking in was, well, you mentioned like there is another way. So that’s kind of like my life motto because I, an early age, I didn’t have a you know, great experience in the educational system. I was a high school dropout. I ended up going to college through like a convoluted different way.

And I’d always been interested in working for myself. I wasn’t good at working for other people. It’s a very ADHD kind of upbringing. But I kind of learned, there are things I can do and there are things I’m good at. And if I do those things, then I’m going to be more successful than if I’m just trying to do things the way other people are. But what you said was like, it has always worked out. And so that’s where I was a little bit stuck. Cause I was like, no, it hasn’t always worked out. There’s been lots of times

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (03:54)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (03:55)
that it’s probably easier to do things like a more conventional way.

that’s fine, but for me that just hasn’t worked very well. no, I have been fortunate to publish books and things. Some of those books have sold well, others have not. I’ve done a bunch of events, started different projects and businesses and some have done well, but many have not. So let’s just, to be clear, not everything has worked very well,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:19)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Guillebeau (04:20)
but it works the only way that I know, which is I just keep trying things. So

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:23)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (04:24)
to your second point about

I think you were talking about time anxiety and was it like, when did I start noticing this?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:29)
Yeah. When you start to feel it, yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (04:32)
Yeah. Well, I probably have, you know, always had some sense of it, but it definitely became much more persistent and present maybe over, I guess the past five to 10 years or so. And I’m the kind of person who likes to do things like.

my ideal life is not like, go to the beach. My ideal life is let’s start some new stuff, right? Let’s do some projects. Let’s work on things. Cause I like that. But I

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (04:57)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Guillebeau (04:57)
felt like, I’m doing all these things and I like most of what I’m doing. I’ve already kind of eliminated a lot of the things that I might not want to do. But yet I still feel, I have the sense of like you said, there’s something else I should be doing, but I don’t know what it is. And how do I decide between all the different things I like to do?

what is most important and what is the meaning of it all or the purpose of it all. And this feeling kind of manifests in lots of ways. It’s like this malaise or this discontent. And it’s also this day to day, like, what do I do? What do I

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:32)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Guillebeau (05:32)
do right now? And I have like, I’ve got a to-do list. I’ve got a list of my projects. I’m pretty good at like, let me reverse engineer and think about the smallest step and then the next step and all that stuff that people teach you. But yet,

If you just keep doing that, then you get better and better at doing that. But I felt like I was getting better and better at maybe doing the wrong things. And so that really

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (05:51)
Sure, sure.

Chris Guillebeau (05:52)
bothered me. And so I wanted to kind of research it more and just go on a bit of a discovery process, both for myself and then hopefully for other people who felt something similar.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (06:02)
Yeah,

I I wanna I wanna talk about a a specific moment in your life. And in in in your thirties, you turned in a book manuscript four months late. Not because you didn’t care about it, you you obviously cared about it, and and you had already done a lot of what most people would call making it, right?

Chris Guillebeau (06:21)
Mm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (06:22)
What what was actually going on in your in your mind during those four months?

Chris Guillebeau (06:27)
Yeah, it’s interesting. I think that book manuscript was The Happiness of Pursuit which was a book I wrote about going to every country in the world and also other people who have undertaken different quests and what do they learn and what’s the value of this and what do they give up and so on. So I really liked that subject. And, but I had a hard time writing the book and I think part of it actually relates to neurodivergence and ADHD. Like I was diagnosed

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (06:50)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Guillebeau (06:51)
with ADHD as a kid and you know, you never really like stop being ADHD.

but as an adult, I didn’t really pay much attention to it. Like I didn’t know much about like strategies and such, and I didn’t take any medication or any of that. And I think it was around that time that this started to be more pronounced and it was like, I really want to be writing this book. This is something I care about and believe in, but yet I’m struggling. And so getting some help in that way definitely was a big game changer for me. But then maybe also just like getting a little bit more intentional about what is it that I actually want to say.

in this book. But it did bother me. It bothered me to turn it in late because I’d always been this kind of person that was like, I’m going to have it on time or it’s going to be early. And then it wasn’t.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (07:31)
Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.

I wanna I wanna talk about something that you created. And this is how we how we met. You started NeuroDiversion in 2025 because, in your own words, the standard advice does not fit our brains, and we needed our own conversations. Last year, more than five hundred people

Flew into Austin, Texas, from across the United States and Canada and other countries. And you’ve said this is basically your life mission now. I was in that room. it

Chris Guillebeau (08:05)
Sure. Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:07)
was a beautiful experience to be there. I had so much fun. I was one of the keynote speakers

Chris Guillebeau (08:11)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:12)
there at NeuroDiversion. And that room, being on that stage, being among all of those people, was so validating.

And and I I know I’ve thanked you like 75 billion times, but I’m good. I’m gonna thank you again because

Chris Guillebeau (08:26)
Thank you again.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:28)
I I because of your invite to me to to join this community, I’ve I’ve met some people that have legitimately changed my life.

Chris Guillebeau (08:37)
Mm, that’s great.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:38)
I I have have been in a room with people that I just felt so comfortable with to tell my story and to

And to just hear their stories and to feel so validated in my neurodivergent life because this is, I think people forget this is all still new to me. I was

Chris Guillebeau (08:56)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:56)
I haven’t been diagnosed long at all.

Chris Guillebeau (08:58)
Mm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (08:59)
And so to be invited into this space that you created is is amazing. I’m curious for you. You said this is your life mission now. What did you see or feel happen in that room?

That you can’t get from writing a book.

Chris Guillebeau (09:18)
Yeah, well dude, thank you for saying that. And honestly, you made the experience better for others, right? And that’s the cool thing about this type of community building is if you do it well from like a curatorial perspective, like you build the right

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:30)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Guillebeau (09:30)
foundation, that’s like half the work. And the other half of the work comes from the 500 people or the five people or the thousand or whatever the number is, but the rest of the value comes from everybody who’s there. So that’s really exciting. And what you talked about is exactly.

why we do it. I mean, that’s the point. As for the mission, yeah, I guess I tend to think of things in terms of life cycles and

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (09:56)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (09:58)
it just, feels like a very missional thing. And maybe some people might prefer a different word. I guess for me, it’s just like, this is the intention. This is what I’m supposed to be working on right now. It feels very meaningful and it’s…

It’s the kind of thing that, like the reason I started it is because it didn’t exist before. Like I felt it needed to exist and it didn’t. There wasn’t anything else like it. And I was like, okay, I am fortunate to have had different experiences in my life that have kind of led me to this point where working together with other smart people, because it’s certainly not just me, we can make something for this community. And as for being like in person, I think you said something about that too.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (10:34)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Guillebeau (10:34)
Like

in this day and age, I think it is just so, so vital to gather with other like-minded people. When I say like-minded,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (10:41)
Yes.

Chris Guillebeau (10:42)
I don’t mean they’re just like you, right? That’s like diversity is very important in all the ways, but like-minded in the sense of like, we’re going through similar experiences and we have something to share. And so like there’s so much happening with AI right now and like, okay, that’s cool for some things, right? But I have like…

zero interest in using AI for live events or for community things. Like it’s the opposite of that. And so maybe the last thing I think of is like, you know, people sometimes ask like, what’s the ROI of this or like, are the metrics? And that’s, that’s also like the wrong question because, you know, it’s, I remember this quote, what’s the ROI of your mother.

which is like, do you measure

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:21)
Mm.

Chris Guillebeau (11:21)
that, right? And maybe for somebody who’s watching or listening, if you didn’t have a good relationship with your mother, maybe it was your dad or maybe some other adult in your life, hard to measure that like on a spreadsheet, you know, in terms of business analysis, but most likely like the impact was tremendous. And so I believe that

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:37)
Absolutely.

Chris Guillebeau (11:38)
the right kind of like community gatherings can have

that kind of impact.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (11:40)
Yeah. I’m I’m

glad you said that because that’s a I think that’s a beautiful way to put it because like I remember one of the first questions or I I I I can’t remember it might have been Trina that said to me, She was like, you know, when she sent the message saying, Hey, can you, you know, come speak? And she’s like and I’m Yeah, of course. She’s like

You know, you’re gonna have to fly yourself out. I’m like, yeah, that’s fine. And so, like, I I was saying to one of my fr friends that I was going, and they’re are you f are they flying you out? I’m like, No, I’m flying myself. They’re like, Wait, why are they not blah blah? And that kind of goes to your point, right? There’s just some

Chris Guillebeau (12:14)
You

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:15)
things to me that are just worth the investment because if you want to

Chris Guillebeau (12:18)
No,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:18)
talk about ROI here, like the return on investment.

far surpassed anything financial for me. Like we’re like we’re

Chris Guillebeau (12:26)
Mmm, good, good.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:28)
talking about just relationships and communities

Chris Guillebeau (12:30)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:31)
that last a lifetime. And like that that’s wh

Chris Guillebeau (12:33)
That’s good, man. Well, that’s the goal.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:34)
and and like I that’s why I’m I’m telling people like when the tickets go on sale, get your ticket because it’s gonna

Chris Guillebeau (12:38)
Mm. Nice, great.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (12:41)
yeah, because it’s it it’s one of those things that that that’s great. And and from for for your story, I I think this is what makes your story a little different than some of the people that that

Listen to to my podcast because a lot of people that listen and watch my podcast, they were they’re diagnosed later, right? You were not diagnosed later. You were diagnosed as a kid.

Chris Guillebeau (12:57)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:00)
And so you have you’ve had the word ADHD attached to you almost your entire life. And you still say that you you didn’t understand until much, much later how it was

Chris Guillebeau (13:09)
Mm-hmm. yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:12)
shaping your relationship with time.

Chris Guillebeau (13:14)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:15)
What is it like to have that label

for decades and still not have the language for it and what it

Chris Guillebeau (13:21)
Yeah.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:22)
was doing for you?

Chris Guillebeau (13:23)
Well, it’s interesting. I, it was like a 20 year gap of

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (13:26)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (13:26)
learning anything about it because like there was the time when I was a kid and I wasn’t behaving in school and they get these evaluations and then they give me Ritalin or something. And you know, then 20 plus years go by without ever any like return to it. And it was only when I started like struggling that I was like, maybe I should think about this more. So I think for a while it was like,

a little bit of a joke, like I would joke about I’m ADHD or like I’m ADD, which is what we used to say, but it never really had any meaning or definition to me. And so it was really great when I started like, maybe I need to get some help. And I also had a lot of depression and like other things to figure out in my life and started going to therapy for the first time. So that was good. But the interesting thing is there was also a gap between then, there’s probably like a five year gap of like,

when I was like, ADHD, maybe some medication would be helpful for me. And I did that and it was helpful. But then there was a long gap between that and actually learning more about the condition and about neurodivergence and what are some other things that we can do to help manage our lives and to understand ourselves. And then so then that brought a whole other layer of understanding. And I wish I’d had that sooner. I definitely did.

Something I think is really great about what you’re doing and other folks in this space is you’re giving voice to this, to this lived experience and allowing so many people to be like, maybe this is me in my own way. And so that didn’t really exist, at least in this way when I was kind of coming up. So I’m glad that

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (14:57)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (14:58)
people like you are sharing.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:00)
Yeah, so let’s let’s talk about the thing that you found the words for. This is what I want to deep dive into to today, because I know

Chris Guillebeau (15:04)
Mmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:06)
a lot of people watching this are are gonna feel what we’re gonna what we’re about to talk about, and they’re gonna they they feel

Chris Guillebeau (15:12)
Hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:12)
it every day, and they probably never once heard it named before. So

Chris Guillebeau (15:17)
Mm-hmm. Okay.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (15:18)
let’s dive into this. You split this into into two halves in your work.

There’s the existential version, which is time is is running out in my life. And then you have the daily version that there’s not enough time in this day. Most people who feel it are convinced that they have like a scheduling problem. How would you describe what time anxiety actually is and what does it cost somebody to keep treating it like it’s a calendar problem year after year, day after day?

Chris Guillebeau (15:47)
Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I think you set it up very well there by mentioning the two halves of existential, you know, time is running out in my life. Maybe another thing people say is I worry I’m too late for something like time has passed me by. I missed my chance for something. And something that was really interesting in all the research I did is people say this at every age. You know, we imagine it’s somebody who’s like in their thirties or forties or fifties or another generation looking back at their youth.

quote unquote, and saying I regret something. But actually, even young people, teenagers, people in their early 20s will say almost exactly the same thing. Like, I feel like I’ve missed my chance. So that’s like a commonality of, I don’t know if it’s humanity, but people who are stressed about time. So that’s one side. And then the other side is the day to day or the routine of like, okay, I know more or less what I want to do with my life, but I still, I feel so much stress or distress over how to

to triage things and how to prioritize and how to sequence things. And as for why we treat it as a calendar problem or an app problem or I need a journal, there’s a certain tool or something that’s gonna help, I think that’s what the world has kind of set up to sell to us. Like there has to be a way to fix this, right? There has to be some system or some tool. And I think a lot of us are just wired to seek that out. Like what’s the solution, right? There’s gotta be something.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (17:10)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (17:11)
And we think other people have it all figured out. you know, I mentioned earlier, like getting better and better at doing the wrong things. You can get really good at efficiency without actually being effective. You’re like trying to eke out another 2 % of productivity or something.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (17:26)
Yep.

Chris Guillebeau (17:26)
But what happens is you just, you get better at things and then what’s the outcome? Like if you get better at doing your job, you get more work at your job. Like that’s the reward of being good at your job is they’re like, here’s some more job to do.

And it’s not to blame like the company because if you’re self-employed you do this to yourself, you know And I can I can speak from example. It’s like I finished something. What’s the next thing? You know, so I guess after a while I kind of began to see more is not the answer to too much You know if we’re saying like there’s too much in my life. I feel overwhelmed What’s the other thing I can add to it? That can’t be the answer but it’s also it’s tricky because just to like wrap this point up it’s also not just a matter of

less either. And I think this is a common misconception because people are like, I just, am overwhelmed. I need to pare down. And maybe you do, but what most of us want is we want more of some things and less of others. It’s not like we want less of everything, right? There’s some things in our life that we want more of. So we need to figure out where to maximize and where to minimize. It’s not so much about how can I become a minimalist and just pare down on everything.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (18:32)
Yeah. I wan I wanna give some people some some I wanna give people some receipts here because a lot of a lot of people that that

Have been told their whole life that this is a discipline problem. like I I wanna I wanna drop some knowledge here. So humor me for a second here. I was I was doing some research on this and I was reading this 2024 review in this journal called Developmental Neuropsychology and that that review it it pulled together like more than like 800 results on on this very thing.

And they found the consistent difference between how people with ADHD judge time. And it holds across the whole lifespan, not just in kids. And then there was another analysis in the Journal of American, Journal of American Academy, of the American Academy for of children and adolescent psychiatry. and it was led by this researcher named Ivo Marx.

and he described the pattern as an internal clock that runs fast. That’s that’s a real thing sitting

Chris Guillebeau (19:30)
Interesting.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:32)
behind what people call ADHD time blindness. It’s not everybody, and there’s plenty of people without ADHD that feel this too. But for the ones

Chris Guillebeau (19:36)
Mm-hmm. Right. Yep. Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:40)
where it fits, when some

Chris Guillebeau (19:42)
Mmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:42)
when somebody finally understands the clock in their head is doing something measurable.

Chris Guillebeau (19:47)
Mmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (19:48)
Why

should they try s st why should they try s you know, stop trying to fix it?

Chris Guillebeau (19:53)
Well, it’s probably a real problem for them. So maybe they don’t have to try to fix the way their brain is wired. But I think it’s fair if it’s causing them hardship, if they feel stressed out about time, they feel like they’re always being late to things, if they’re always behind, then I think it is appropriate to be like, what are some things we can do? But yes, step one is to understand, this is how I’m wired. OK, that all makes sense. Now I understand it’s not a question of being broken.

It’s not a question of like, there’s something wrong with me. But then maybe step two is like, because I don’t process time the way neurotypical people do, I need to not use my limited cognitive resources to try to keep track of time. know, like there’s only a certain number of things we can keep up with. And these days, like we have technology that can help us with time. Like time is something that should be outsourced and delegated, at least in terms of the tracking and such. And I think for everybody,

Whether you have ADHD or not if you just you struggle with being late this really simple tip that I love to share and it’s always so funny because I share this and I feel like it’s so simple and then people do it and they’re like Wow, my life has changed So the tip is you got to leave 15 minutes earlier than you think for everything you need to do Like for every meeting for every appointment leave 15 minutes earlier Because a lot of us are trying to cram in one more thing, right or we might like map the

no directions, but we’re not thinking about parking or thinking about getting to transport or getting out of our building or whatever. Like things happen basically. And so if you, if you can build the habit of like arriving a few minutes early before things, you feel so much relief and people who’ve never done this before, who are like constantly late, it just blows their mind. And so I encourage people just give yourself more of a buffer than you normally do even for virtual things. Let’s say like if you’re doing virtual

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:39)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (21:40)
calls, give yourself more of a buffer, give yourself.

just a little bit of breathing room so you’re not just going from one thing to another. And I think that’s gonna help you to feel better.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (21:49)
Yeah. I w I wanna talk about one person specifically, not like a literal actual person, but like just a type of person. ’cause there’s a lot of women especially that listen to this podcast. And I wanna talk about the woman who got their ADHD diagnosis. You you had mentioned it before.

Getting a diagnosis late, 40s, 50s, 60s, 70s. I like I my

Chris Guillebeau (22:10)
Mm-hmm. Yep.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:12)
DMs and my emails are full of people that are getting late diagnosis that age. So not uncommon. So I want to talk about the the woman in that got her ADHD diagnosis, like let’s just say in her in her 40s, and has spent every day since that diagnosis doing the math, right? Counting the years, adding up

Chris Guillebeau (22:27)
Hmm. Hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:28)
the career that that she thinks she should have had.

You know, the version of herself she was supposed to be by now, grieving a person who

Chris Guillebeau (22:37)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:38)
never got to exist. Your whole message

Chris Guillebeau (22:41)
Hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:41)
is that there is still time.

Chris Guillebeau (22:44)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:44)
What talk about that? And talk about what is what is the math costing this person while she’s sitting

Chris Guillebeau (22:50)
Mmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (22:50)
there trying to figure this all out?

Chris Guillebeau (22:53)
Yeah, it’s such a tricky thing because for so much of my life, I felt like the time is running out and the time is limited, which is true. Like time is finite. That is a truth. And at the same time, if you are listening or watching right now, there is still time. And so that is what I think is so important to realize is, well, yes, know, time is limited for everyone. Ultimately, life is about choosing. Life is about accepting.

that we’re probably not gonna be able to do everything. I think this is a message that should be shared a lot more widely because there’s a lot of talk about you can do anything you want and like, well, maybe you can do anything, but you can’t do everything, especially as an adult. And it’s actually very freeing to understand and acknowledge that. Like for a child, yes, you be anything you want and dream really big. And then I think as you get older, there’s a lot of power in saying, okay, I could have done this, I could have done that. And sure, that’s fine, but-

you know, what am I going to do right now? Because here’s the opportunity that I have in front of me. And in accepting that, it’s a commonality that we all have limited time. So in accepting that fact, you actually can make much more peace with it than if you try to fight it or resist it or ignore it or deny it, which I think is kind of the common approach is just to pretend that

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:07)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (24:07)
this isn’t there. But I think it’s exciting. Like once you, once you begin to like I have this whole chapter in the book about

like think about death every day. And when you think about death, because people are like, whoa, death, you know, but it actually

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:21)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (24:21)
becomes, it actually gives you this built in excuse to not do anything that you don’t want to do. Right. And, know, the next time something comes up that you don’t want to do, you just remind yourself, Hey, like one day I’m going to die. So, I had this whole thing in the book about, so why do need to do this? Right. Like, why do

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:38)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (24:39)
I need to, you know, I had this whole thing about, here’s some things, here’s some lines you can practice, you know,

When somebody invites you to something you don’t want to go to, you’re just like, no thank you, can’t do that because I’m going to die one day. Or maybe I’m dying right now. It’s great. That’s right. Right, right. Somebody

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (24:49)
That almost came out through my nose, by the way. Anybody that’s not watching, when you said that, when you said that, that almost came out through my nose.

Chris Guillebeau (24:57)
asks you to take on something at work that’s really not your responsibility and really this other person should be doing it. You can just say, I would love to do that. If I had all the time in the world, if I had unlimited hours and days, I would 100 % do that for you. But because I don’t,

You know, got to make some choices here. And so, you know, I remember having this conversation with my editor, but she’s like, do you want to, that’s a little bit harsh, you know, and I’m like, well, people can say it in their own way. You know, this is more just, I want you to adopt this understanding that it’s very freeing. It’s actually very good once you understand, man, you know, the math, as you said, to go back to your question, you know, for the woman in her forties or whatever age who’s realized like,

you know, maybe I would have made some different choices. Well, we all would have like that’s reality. Like regret is a is a common experience of humanity. So I think like when you see like the no regrets tattoos or like no regrets, you know, misspelled or whatever, it’s it’s it’s admirable

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:49)
Yes, yes.

Chris Guillebeau (25:51)
to try to live with no regrets. But ultimately in life, you know, as we have an entire lifespan, we’re probably going to regret some things. And that’s OK. You know, the time that we have now

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (25:58)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (26:01)
is the time that we have now.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:03)
I wanna I wanna stay I wanna stay with that and and especially for the group of people that listen to this because obvious like I said before in in my community, fifties, sixties, seventies, it comes through my inbox every week. again, people who spend a lifetime running on on rules that nobody ever wrote down.

Chris Guillebeau (26:22)
Mm-hmm.

Mm. Sure. Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:24)
And you go after that in your book, you know, the the unwritten time rules.

you know, I you know, I return every call within an hour, I answer

Chris Guillebeau (26:31)
Mm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:32)
every email the same day, I do not, you know, sit down until the kitchen is clean.

Chris Guillebeau (26:36)
Right.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:37)
What is it? What is a time rule that you followed for years before you realized nobody had actually asked you to follow it?

Chris Guillebeau (26:44)
Yeah, great question.

Great question. I was just going to say it’s important to realize most of these time rules are rules that we are giving to ourselves. Nobody has given

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (26:51)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (26:52)
this rule. But yeah, for me, was probably, I don’t know, something about the responsiveness. Like I did kind of pride myself in being really responsive and like, I’m building this community. I want to be accessible. And I still like that. I still think that’s a good value. But I also know that ultimately I’m going to

fall short in it. And I have this other chapter called the inbox of shame, because for many years, my email inboxes was a source of shame, because I just constantly am thinking about all the people I haven’t gotten back to. so it’s not like I have let go of that time rule entirely. But I also have just been like, well, that’s a battle that I’m probably not going to win. So I have to try to make my peace some other way.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (27:31)
Yeah. Yeah. I would I want to revisit something that you had mentioned earlier, and towards the beginning of this interview. And that’s the depression side of it. I want to revisit that for a second. Cause you’ve been very open about experiencing depression alongside all of the things that we talked about today. And and you you describe the combination in a way that I I I just I can’t shake it. Time feels like it’s running out.

And at the exact same moment, the energy you would need to do any if anything at all about that, it disappears. Right?

Chris Guillebeau (28:06)
Mm-hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (28:07)
In what ways does depression change what time exact anxiety feels like from the inside? Like how does how does depression change what anxiety, what time anxiety specifically feels like?

Chris Guillebeau (28:17)
Hmm.

Yeah, I think there are degrees of depression and most people who have experienced depression, they probably understand that like, okay, there’s severe depression where this is really serious and, you know, this is kind of like taking over my life and I really need some like immediate intervention. And I have, I have been in that place. I think more commonly for me, it’s, it’s been like, okay, not that severe, but

you know, it’s definitely like this foreboding presence and like, it’s like there’s a cloud, you know, over me or to use like a metaphor or something. And it’s just like, not taking joy in anything and nothing is exciting. Nothing is fun. You know, I’m just kind of passing the time, you know, so to use a phrase like we’re talking about time, like, I’ve never liked this phrase killing time, let’s go kill time. We have this thing to do in two hours, we’ve to kill some time and you know, I’m like, whoa, you got hours, what are you going to kill the time, you know, but it does feel like when I’ve been depressed, it’s just like,

just let’s get through the day, you know, let’s get through the day. And maybe there’s like some coping mechanism or something that I’m like using or looking forward to. And I don’t know like an easy way to turn all of that around. I just know like what I have learned, you know, for myself, first of all, it is understanding. It is just recognizing, there are patterns in my life. This is somewhat like biological or chemical. And at different times I’m gonna

cycle through seasons of sadness. Other things,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (29:41)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (29:42)
other times it’s like, okay, there are some practical interventions. I do need to make sure I’m getting some sunshine. I do need to make sure I’m exercising and trying to eat moderately well. Not too many donuts or pastries all the time, although I like donuts and pastries a lot. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (29:54)
Yeah. Now I want a donut. Now I want one.

Chris Guillebeau (29:59)
I do like that. And other times

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:01)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (30:01)
maybe there’s something else, but yeah, I guess it’s just like a little bit of radical acceptance, a little bit of…

What’s the intervention I can do? Maybe something that’s helpful is like, if I don’t know the answer for something, whether it’s being depressed or trying to work through some other problem, if I don’t have the final answer for that, I ask myself, what else can I do? Is there something

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:20)
Mm.

Chris Guillebeau (30:20)
else I can work on so that at least I, at the end of the day or whatever, I can point to this thing and say, okay, I did this. So this is kind of like reverse procrastination in some ways where you’re like,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:32)
Yeah.

Chris Guillebeau (30:33)
okay.

you know, what else can I do?

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:35)
Mm-hmm. Somebody somebody watching or listening right now is probably looking for ways to work on all this, fix it in a way. But

Chris Guillebeau (30:43)
Hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:44)
obviously you can’t overhaul your life in one night, right? It’s it takes time.

Chris Guillebeau (30:47)
Right, of course.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:48)
there’s a lot of

parents that that listen to this pod and they don’t they feel like they don’t have another a lot of time or energy in their day you know they feel like they like

Chris Guillebeau (30:56)
You

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (30:58)
they’re listening to this right now and maybe they want to do something but they’re like I got 10 minutes and no energy you know for the rest of the day. Is there is there

Chris Guillebeau (31:02)
Hmm sure sure sure yeah

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:06)
anything that that person can do as soon as this podcast is done to start

Chris Guillebeau (31:11)
Yeah, that’s great.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:12)
to to to loosen this a little bit something that that costs nothing and doesn’t need anybody

Chris Guillebeau (31:14)
Yep. All right.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (31:17)
else’s permission.

Chris Guillebeau (31:19)
Yep, great question. First thing I would say to that person is I’m sorry that other people say things like, well, everybody has the same 24 hours in a day, which is a really common thing. And you just gotta suck it up, basically. And you gotta get up an hour earlier in the morning and do things for yourself. Because you’re probably already sleep deprived for that parent or whoever that person is that’s really stressed. You probably already are like,

burning the candle at both ends and such. So it is unfair in society that there’s different burdens on different people for their time, for caregivers, for women. And that’s the first thing is like, it’s not fair. Let’s acknowledge that. But then what can you do? Okay, something everybody can do right now. I think it’s so important to pay attention to how you spend your time. And you can just do this intuitively. You just like…

You don’t have to track it with a spreadsheet. There are people who do that and that’s great. But just like notice and go through the day, because you’re already thinking about this a little bit, go through the day and be like, okay, how does this feel? How does this thing feel? How does this thing feel? What do I want more of? What do I want less of? We talked about that a little bit already, like noticing what those things are. What is giving me energy? What is draining my energy? And so I understand that not everybody has the same amount of autonomy.

But for whatever autonomy or choice you do have, and hopefully you have some, like you’re able to like listen to this podcast, you’re able to like invest in yourself in different ways, whatever level of freedom and autonomy you have, you know, just start making some small choices in favor of yourself and start choosing yourself. Okay. So that’s maybe the thing is like pay attention to how you spend your time. Notice how it feels. Ask yourself at the end of the day, did today matter? And I think everybody has an intuitive answer to that.

You know that like there are some days that matter and some days that you’re like, I don’t really know what happened today. It’s just I did stuff, right? but as you answer, like, you say, yes, today mattered because I did this thing or I had, I took time to have tea or coffee with my friend. Haven’t seen them for a while. I had a phone call on a walk, you know, with my friends or maybe I worked on my business or worked on a chapter of my book that I’ve been trying to write, whatever it is for you. Once you kind of notice, these are the things that lead me to say today mattered. Then you try to do more of those things.

And I think that is a good, helpful start. And there’s more that we could do, but that’s a start.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:39)
Yeah.

That’s great. Chris, I wanna play a little game with you. It’s called This or That. And what I’m gonna

Chris Guillebeau (33:45)
All right.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:46)
do is I’m gonna give you two options. And

Chris Guillebeau (33:47)
huh.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:48)
all you have to do is choose one or the other,

Chris Guillebeau (33:50)
Mm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:51)
or neither, or both. It’s not deep. You can just choose whatever role whatever you want. It’s there’s no right or wrong answer. Yes. So I’ll give

Chris Guillebeau (33:54)
Okay, four options. right. All right.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (33:58)
you two options and then you go from there, okay? All

Chris Guillebeau (34:01)
Yep.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:01)
right, here we go. First one. You’ve traveled a lot, so

Airport three hours early or sprinting to the gate.

Chris Guillebeau (34:09)
I mean, those are the only four options. I can’t give a monologue. That’s the time to be like, but it depends on the airport, Ky. It depends on where I’m going and what the situation is and the context and what airline am

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:13)
You you you can you you can do anything and that’s true. That’s true.

Chris Guillebeau (34:19)
I flying? Do I have access to a lounge? Is it a bad lounge? Okay, sorry.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:22)
I think that’s your answer right there.

Chris Guillebeau (34:27)
Kind of a travel geek. Is it Philadelphia airport? Is it Portland airport? Is it Austin? It’s all different factors, you know.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:27)
I think that that right there is your answer. I love that because I’m the same way. Like I need some more details here. Right. Yes. Yes. Fair. Okay. Fair. Here

we go. Number two. Inbox at zero or inbox at 4,000 and being at peace with.

Chris Guillebeau (34:48)
4,000 and being at peace with it. Man, yeah, just let’s be real.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:49)
Yeah, I figured. Mm-hmm.

Yes. Number

Chris Guillebeau (34:52)
Hmm.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (34:53)
three, a paper planner or the notes app with two hundred open notes.

Chris Guillebeau (34:58)
Is it which is better? Is it which is preferred? Is it what am I doing right now? I have a paper

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:04)
Your choice

Chris Guillebeau (35:06)
notebook, like a journal that I carry with me everywhere, and I’ve always done this for 20 years, but I have to admit at this point, I think it’s more of like a security notebook, like a security blanket. Like I feel weird if I don’t have it, but I’m not actually writing a ton of stuff down anymore. Like I am doing so much more digitally, and I don’t really mind that for the most part. It feels natural and intuitive to me.

but maybe there’s a part of me that just refuses to let go of this identity of like carrying around the notebook and writing things down.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:31)
That’s fair. That’s

fair. Number four, a deadline you set for yourself. no, no, no, actually no, this is actually short compared to some of my

Chris Guillebeau (35:35)
I’m giving you the longest answers. I’m giving you, I’m gonna, okay, here we go.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:40)
guests, so you’re good. You’re actually doing great. number four, a deadline you set for yourself or a a deadline someone else set for you.

Chris Guillebeau (35:49)
Much prefer the deadline I set for myself. However,

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (35:52)
Mm-hmm.

Chris Guillebeau (35:52)
it’s true that I’m in some ways gonna do a better job perhaps than the deadline that someone else sets, which I think ties into Gretchen Rubin’s Four Tendencies model of how you respond to external versus internal expectations. And the last thing I’ll say on it is the reason why I write my books with traditional publishers, everyone’s like, why don’t you self-publish your books? I’m like, because I like the accountability of somebody else’s deadline. And if

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:14)
Yes.

Chris Guillebeau (36:15)
I did it all myself, it would probably never get done.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:17)
Yes, agreed there. Agreed there. and then last one, when it comes to having a completely empty day on your calendar, nothing scheduled at all, is that the best thing in the world or is it low key terrifying?

Chris Guillebeau (36:30)
I think it’s pretty good. I like it because I like wide blocks of time to spend, you know, however I see fit. So I like it.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (36:38)
Yeah. Great. Awesome.

Chris, I have I have one more question for you before I let you go.

And I ask this of all of my guests, and that is if you if there’s one thing that you want the audience to take away from our talk today, what should that one thing be?

Chris Guillebeau (36:56)
Okay. Well, I think we touched on it earlier, so let’s just bring it back around. We talked a lot about time anxiety in the sense of just so much out there in the world and so much input and information and so much choice in our lives, which is beautiful, but also it’s stressful because like, how do we choose and such? And so I guess the thing I would just leave people with is once again, reminding you if you’re watching or listening that yes, you know,

Life is short and time is limited, but also, if you’re watching or listening right now, there’s still time. There is still time. There’s something you can do. There’s still time to follow a dream or to go back to something you thought about a long time ago and be like, maybe I should try that now. There’s still time to experiment and do something new or to have a new relationship or to start a new hobby or just whatever it is. There’s still time and I hope that you will do something about that.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:49)
I love that. Chris, thank you for hanging out with me today, my friend. I appreciate you. I’m really grateful for you. Thank you. Yeah, man.

Chris Guillebeau (37:52)
Dude, thank you. So grateful for you.

Kyrus Keenan Westcott (37:55)
A huge thank you to Chris Guillebeau for being a guest on The Vibe With Ky Podcast. today. I’m so grateful for his time and this conversation, and I’m grateful for his friendship. If you enjoyed my chat with Chris today, be sure to go check him out. You can find Chris online at chrisguillebeau.com and you can check out his book, Time Anxiety, and you can check that out at timeanxiety.com. You can also catch the daily podcast Side Hustle School when wherever you like to listen to podcasts.

And if you want to be within the room with us at NeuroDiversion 2027 in Austin, Texas, this coming March 24th through the 27th, I can give you $50 off of your ticket. All you have to do is go visit neurodiversion.org/thevibewithky I’ll be there. A lot of my friends will be there, a lot of your favorite ADHD content creators will be there, and I’d be really happy to see you there as well. All of those links, including the link for a $50 off ticket, $50 off your ticket, that is going to be in the show notes.

Of this episode. Also, if you enjoyed today’s episode, make sure you go visit my website at TheVibeWithKy.com or follow me @TheVibeWithKy on all of your favorite social media platforms for even more conversations and content just like this episode. And if you haven’t already, make sure you subscribe so you never miss an episode of The Vibe With Ky Podcast. and leave a review so more people can find the show just like you did. With that said, thank you so much for watching and for listening. As always, my friends, much love, good vibes. I’ll catch you next time. Bye.