Understanding 'time confetti' and how it's stealing your downtime

By Kellie Scott, ABC Lifestyle

Ever feel like your downtime is constantly interrupted by other tasks niggling away at you?

That email you need to send, load of washing you need to put on, or weird rash you need to google?

"Time confetti" is a concept that captures this breaking up, and interruption, of time, turning it into small, fragmented moments - like confetti - says Sara Quinn, president of the Australian Psychological Society.

"Modern life requires a lot from all of us," she says.

"We are constantly juggling multiple roles and commitments, and there is a temptation for us to try and do everything at once."

And while it might sound cute, time confetti isn't great for productivity or our wellbeing.

Wendy Cole is a leadership and productivity coach from Melbourne/Naarm and says time confetti is "distracted time of fairly useless pockets."

They are "useless" pockets because constantly switching between tasks doesn't allow us to fully focus and be our most productive.

It can happen across all areas of our life, whether it's at work, while caring for children, or when we're trying to do something fun or unwind.

Time confetti at home, and at work

An example of time confetti, Dr Quinn says, might be when you come home from work and are spending time with the family before dinner.

"We might be physically present in that moment, but we are also responding to work emails, texting friends about weekend plans, checking social media and also making a doctor's appointment for the next day.

"Without conscious awareness, these smaller tasks have diverted our attention and away from the quality time you initially wanted to spend with family."

Cole says digital distractions, such as constant pop-ups and notifications, are making it harder for us to remain attentive to one task at a time, and the "bits of confetti are getting smaller and smaller".

"It's an unfortunate cycle; the constant context shifting becomes a habit that goes across life domains."

Context shifting is switching your attention between different tasks or thought processes, frequently leading to disruptions in focus.

The term time confetti was coined by author Brigid Schulte, who had the image come to mind while keeping a time diary.

She was working with a time expert and explained that what they identified as pockets of leisure time, she saw as "bits and scraps of garbagy time", fragmented and interrupted by child care and housework.

"It's not actually a formal psychological concept, but a relatable metaphor," says Dr Quinn.

With people more frequently undertaking hybrid and remote work, Dr Quinn says the boundary between professional and personal life becomes further blurred, exacerbating the effect of time confetti.

As well as interrupting our leisure time, time confetti is making us less productive at work.

Cole says data shows the average desk worker changes desktop applications every six minutes.

"What meaningful work can you do in six-minute intervals?"

The consequences of time confetti

Scattered use of time can negatively impact our health and wellbeing, Dr Quinn says.

For example, you might take some time to sit down and unwind, but if at the same time you are picking up your phone to "tick things off your list", you may feel a sense of achievement, but you haven't allowed your brain and body to be fully present in that time to relax.

"If the intention was the wind-down, that is not something you are actually achieving," Dr Quinn says.

She says although "we feel like we are doing all of the things", we aren't doing them in the most productive way.

Cole says time confetti prevents us from doing our best work.

"The more context shifting we do, the longer things take, the harder things feel, the more errors we are likely to make, and overall stress goes up.

"This rapid context shifting is elevating our stress levels and makes it more and more difficult neurologically to focus, frying our brains and getting worse at everything."

Dr Quinn says "it's counterintuitive in the long term" and "feeling overwhelmed has consequences".

Who is most affected by time confetti?

While anyone can be impacted by time confetti, Brigid Schulte said that it's something deeply familiar to mums.

"Whatever leisure time they have is often devoted to what others want to do - particularly the kids - and making sure everyone else is happy doing it," she wrote in 2015.

"Often women are so preoccupied by all the other stuff that needs doing - worrying about the carpool, whether there's anything in the fridge to cook for dinner - that the time itself is what sociologists call 'contaminated'."

It's well established women do more unpaid labour in the home and have less leisure time than their male partners.

It's also the quality of that time that is an issue, as demonstrated by the gender exercise gap.

Women try to "kick two goals": do their exercise and look after the kids, or do exercise and get to the shops.

Steps you can take to reduce time confetti

While there are many ways to help reduce time confetti, we asked our experts for some simple tips to get started.

Dr Quinn say there is "no right or wrong" around how we use our time, as long as we are intentional about it.

She recommends identifying things you want to spend time on, for example engaging in a slow walk with a pet when you finish work.

"When we do something consciously and deliberately with an intention, that promotes a sense of fulfilment - we feel joy, and more accomplished."

Cole says "quarantining" family and leisure time can help us focus.

"All devices in another room at dinner time," she says as an example.

Being across your screen time and reducing distractions such as phone notifications is effective at work and in the home, Cole says.

"Having that awareness that I've picked up my phone 365 times and it's only 11.40am.

"Every time you pick you your phone you are context shifting, or starting to fragment time, which is time confetti."

She says to decide when you're going to focus, and put your phone out of reach.

"Do one task at a time. It is a mindfulness practice in a way.

"Learning to single task and doing what needs to be done, and then moving on to the next thing is a discipline."

You can also batch similar tasks in close succession to help avoid context shifting, she says.

Lastly if you have the capacity, take a time log.

"It's a less palatable tip," says Cole, but "truly illuminating".

- ABC