:max_bytes(150000):strip_icc()/Screenshot2024-10-04at11.05.45AM-b84f1249467b4582905fed8603092d00.png)
Key Takeaways
- The four time personalities are time optimist, time anxious, time bender, and time blind.
- Each of the four types has a unique set of challenges.
- We can live a more productive life, honor our commitments, and improve our overall well-being by learning to work with these tendencies.
Just as we have individual personalities—which encompass traits such as extroversion, openness to experience, and neuroticism—we also have “time personalities.” These personalities capture our relationship to time: whether we’re punctual, how much time we believe we have, and the specific time-related habits we may display.
What Is a ‘Time Personality’?
According to Kristin Anderson, LCSW, founder of Madison Square Psychotherapy, a “time personality” is our “natural style when it comes to managing time.”
“It dictates how you think about time, handle time, and different patterns around time that you have,” explains Anderson. She says for the majority of us, our “time personality” tends to fall along a spectrum, “from very rigid to very flexible.”
Dr. Ryan Sultan, a board-certified psychiatrist and assistant professor of clinical psychiatry at Columbia University, adds: “‘Time personalities’ can impact a person’s ability to function and have the potential to lead to certain…
