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Time paradoxes of neoliberalism: How time management applications change

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Article in Time & Society · December 2021

DOI: 10.1177/0961463X211059727

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Article

Time & Society

2021, Vol. 0(0) 1–21
Time paradoxes of © The Author(s) 2021
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DOI: 10.1177/0961463X211059727
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applications change the

way we live

Celina Strzelecka
University of Wroclaw, Wroclaw, Poland

Abstract
Time management applications aim to coordinate and tame the rhythms of social
reality. It transpires, however, that in many cases, they somewhat complicate and
impede this process, leading to time paradoxes. Using various theoretical tools
developed in the critical studies of time and the critique of neoliberalism, I identify
three time paradoxes produced by the applications: remembering to remember,
planning to plan, and accelerating acceleration. These three paradoxes were
brought up and thoroughly discussed in in-depth interviews with self-selected
individuals who constantly face challenges related to personal time management. I
highlight how managing time using various applications shapes the experience and
meaning of time, makes individuals reorganize their social practices, redefines
their memory, and influences their emotions. In conclusion, I reflect on how the
tension between linear time and multi-temporality is intertwined with the dis-
cussed paradoxes and counter-productivity of time management applications.

Keywords
Time management applications, neoliberalism, multi-temporality, neoliberal
transmutation of time, time paradoxes, pointillist time

Corresponding author:
Celina Strzelecka, Department of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Wroclaw,
Plac Uniwersytecki, Wroclaw 50-137, Poland.
Email: celstrzel@gmail.com
2 Time & Society 0(0)

Introduction
Capitalism has changed how humans perceive the passage of hours, days, and
weeks (Harvey, 2010). At first, managing time in capitalism included measuring
working time with clocks located anywhere they can be visible from each factory
corner. This practice became one of the primary means of time-conscious capitalism
disciplining the factory worker. Workers who did not submit to the new capitalistic
time regime faced repressions such as draconian regulations, lay-offs, financial
penalties, threats, or moral caution (Pomian, 1984: 258).
Contemporary time management practices capitalize on time management
tools (TMTs)—techniques propagated initially in the 90s’ “self-help texts”
(Adam et al., 2002: 1–2) and are presently used by “resourceful” individuals
striving for increasing productivity and efficiency. The neoliberal “self-help”
tools include digital time management tools (DTMT) that employ some of the
original time management techniques (i.e., Kanban, Eisenhower Matrix, and
Pomodoro). However, while the central premise of DTMTs is that they help
individuals effectively coordinate, manage, and control many different and di-
verse time domains of their social reality, this paper demonstrates that this is not
always the case. To illustrate individual experiences of neoliberalization of time,
this study provides insights into how DTMTs shape individuals’ temporality,
individual perceptions of their social life, and individual social practices. To that
end, I develop the concept of time paradoxes.
To further understand how DTMTs mediate the individual experience of time, I
conducted in-depth interviews and personal observations of individuals born after
1981. Using personal narratives of the respondents from Poland, I identify and
discuss the following time paradoxes: (1) remembering to remember, (2) planning
to plan, and (3) accelerating acceleration. The time paradoxes are entangled in
neoliberal processes of (1) time coordination (Adam, 1995), (2) time trans-
mutation (Sugarman and Thrift, 2017), and (3) time fragmentation (Eriksen,
2001). Voices of the respondent unveil the above entanglements. Therefore, I
must consider how individuals’ memory is redefined, how the respondents decide
what to do with the finite resource of time, and what strategies they develop to
deal with the lack of time and overwork. Last but not least, I look at the emotional
repercussions of paradoxical temporality and how it influences individuals’ well-
being. I conclude by recapitulating all the contradictions discussed in the analytic
section that affect the experience and perception of time mediated by new
technologies.

Theoretical underpinnings
I organized the analysis and discussion around the two central literature debates.
The first debate concerns the impact of neoliberal logic on the ways of
Strzelecka 3

understanding and experiencing time.1 Neoliberalism has a pivotal effect on the

ways individuals experience time in contemporary society (Sugarman and Thrift,
2017). Through “the neoliberal transmutation of time,” time is subordinate to and
a subject of commodification (Appadurai, 1996: 79; Harvey, 2010: 37–38). It
becomes an object of a profitable trade, an economic good that can be distributed,
used, or saved (Adam et al., 2002; Adam, 2004). At the same time, its efficient
management enables subjects to feel self-fulfilled. Importantly, neoliberal subjects
want to take this personal responsibility for the time available to them. Thus,
neoliberalization of time tasks individuals with increasing burdens of personal risk
and responsibility to accomplish more in less time (Sugarman and Thrift, 2017)
demands that time be managed while putting pressure on individuals to reduce
“time wasted.” As a typical product of neoliberalism, DTMTs change how in-
dividuals entangled in neoliberal realities experience the neoliberalization of time.
The second debate in which I place the discussion concerns the issue of new
technologies and their effect on the transformation of social time, conveyed by
the following terms: multi-temporality (Barker, 2011, 2012), poly-rhythm
(Appadurai, 1996), heterotemporality (Hutchings, 2008: 160–176), and pointillist
time (Bauman, 2000, 2017). New information technologies (ICTs) contribute to
the non-linear structure of personal temporalities and the multiplicity of social
times by accelerating time-space compression (Harvey, 1990: 260–283). Anthony
Giddens (1990, 1991) further reflects on time-space distanciation or the sepa-
ration of time from space after the collapse of the former time-space system of
coordinates. Similarly, other scholars emphasized time-space compression ac-
celerated by ICT as a transition to a new, higher stage of capitalism (Crary, 2013;
Stein, 2003). Manuel Castells (1996, 2012) used the term timeless time to refer to
the system of time dominating in a society where electronic information is or-
ganized in loosely structured and flexibly changing networks. According to
Thomas Holland Eriksen (2001), the ultimate consequence of the information
revolution, making significant changes to the rhythms of social life, is the an-
nulment of time understood as the duration in favor of what the scholar refers to as
fragmented time. In digital reality, clock time has been replaced by “network”
time (Sugarman and Thrift, 2017) or “virtual” time (Urry, 2005), and by “iTime”
(Agger, 2011), reflecting the critical role of smartphones in the change of time
perception. Moreover, according to Agger (2011: 124), “iTime is mobile time,
time that is portable as well as elastic.” We currently live in a time that undergoes
continual transformation and adjusts to the constantly changing circumstances. It
is digitally compressed time, which contributes to the considerable acceleration of
the rhythm of life in Western societies (Hassan, 2003).
The inclusion of both aspects leads to a reflection on the contradictions in the
experience of social time while using time management applications. Thus, the
concept of time paradoxes alludes to the studies on neoliberal temporality, which
point out the contradictory aspects of the logic of social time which emerged in the
4 Time & Society 0(0)

course of the development of technology and work for organizations and are most
evident in the context of ICTs (Adam et al., 2002: 19, Adam, 1995; Castells, 1996).
Specifically, the notion of time paradox defines discrepancies between the declared
aims of digital time management techniques and the actual outcomes of their
functioning (Adam et al., 2002: 19; Sabelis, 2007). Thus, for example, Ida Sabelis
(2007) writes that even though “clock time has enabled organization in our modern
society in the first place, it has also created dilemmas and problems that become
visible only when we manage to switch focus from the smooth ideas of control,
planning, and organization to the everyday experience of people trying to cope with
the reality of this in practice” (255–256). Therefore, ethnographic perspective on time
management applications sheds light on “the unintended effects” (Sabelis, 2007:
256), and captures “highly differentiated, multiple, and often conflicting regimes of
lived time we inhabit” (Wajcman, 2018: 3).
Previous studies within the humanities and social sciences have neglected to
examine the implications of DTMTs empirically.2 Hence, the analysis presented
in the paper contributes to an understanding of the paradoxical outcomes
stemming from the impact of TMTs on social time. Furthermore, it contributes
original reflections upon the empirical results to the study of time and the temporal
turn. Finally, it follows a research perspective in which high value is placed on the
significance of time in interpreting social phenomena of the modern and post-
modern world (Hassan, 2010).
In the literature on the subject, the paradoxical effect of ICTs on social time
was observed by Ida Sabelis, who pointed out that there was a “paradoxical bias in
the clock-time perspective: the networking paradigm promises saving time and
more control, yet it produces more work to do, which spills over into the ‘other
times’ of our lives” (Sabelis, 2007: 247). Barbara Adam and Richard Whipp
expressed a similar view:

In the context of globally networked electronic communication, the increase in

mastery is accompanied by a decrease in control, and the intensification of the
temporal logic has paradoxical consequences. (...) the electronically networked
temporality (instantaneity, simultaneity, immediacy, real-time interactions, non-
sequential and non-linear discontinuous processes) (...) is combined with clock
time (externalized, invariable, decontextualized, spatial, quantitative, linear, and
sequential), which, in turn, is superimposed on the time of living and social pro-
cesses (embodied, system-specific, contextual, irreversible) (Adam et al., 2002: 19).

These authors noted the ambivalence in the consequences of the experienced

temporality, in which multi-temporality is intertwined with linearity and in which
the attempt to introduce greater control over time by means of new technologies
does not lead to an increase in the amount of free time. Quite the opposite—ICTs
result in the acceleration of the pace of life, which is detrimental to individuals
Strzelecka 5

(Davis, 2013; Tomlinson, 2007) and at variance with the biorhythm of the human
organism (Cifrić, 2010). They lead high-paced societies to sensory deprivation
(Virilio, 1986, 1995, 2000) and desynchronization (Rosa, 2003, 2013). The
conclusions and intuitions of the authors mentioned above helped to discern the
paradoxical nature of the experience of time mediated by the applications pre-
sented in the analytic part of this paper.

Methodological approach
From June to September 2019, I conducted 57 individual in-depth interviews in
Poland as a part of a more extensive ethnographic study. Therefore, the inter-
viewees’ words concerning the applications presented in the article partially result
from ethnographic research on culture-specific time management practices
conducted in Poland in 2019. Most interviews (30) were conducted face to face. I
met respondents at times and places they found suitable. The remaining 27
interviews were conducted with the support of online communicators like Skype
or Zoom.
Before interviews, I attended three time management training sessions, where I
interacted with potential study participants. I approached my first respondents in
those sessions. Next, I asked those respondents to connect me with other in-
dividuals interested in this study (Morgan, 2008: 816–817). Thus, the following
interviewees were selected through a snowball sampling procedure to ensure an
adequate sample size (Babbie, 1995).
In the following steps, I categorized the respondents based on whether they
worked from home or at an office and determined their working time themselves
(business owners) or their employer determined it. I intended to gather an equal
number of participants from the four groups to identify time management
practices concerning the type of employment. The respondents represent a variety
of professions, including software programmers, employees of the cultural sector.
Regardless of their job, my interviewees repeatedly highlighted that they con-
currently engage in the life of several social groups, have multiple employments,
join various associations, and participate in other social activities. All respondents
obtained a bachelor’s degree.
Moreover, all respondents were born between 1980 and 2000. While many
accessed the Internet-based technologies as early as childhood, they did not use
smartphone devices in their formative years. The study participants live in
Warszawa, Kraków, Gdańsk, Wrocław, and Poznań. Poland’s largest, fast-paced
cities were deemed the most relevant areas to investigate the subject of time
management technologies. These five cities represent the essence of the con-
temporary Polish neoliberal post-socialism (Buchowski, 2006). After the in-
carnation of capitalism to the former communist bloc, consumption patterns in the
cities followed the American model. However, as average income is still
6 Time & Society 0(0)

relatively low, one job is often insufficient to sustain consumption needs. In

a struggle to follow the American model and “catch up with the West,” the
respondents diversify their employment. However, as such multitasking tends to
generate problems in managing one’s time, training courses in time management
have become extremely popular in Poland (Ga˛ decki, 2017).
The interviews were conducted based on the previously prepared interview
questionnaire and participant observation preceding the interviews, which helped
prepare a list of issues.3 The subject of the interviews was culture-specific time
management practices, including the use of technology. I asked the interviewees
what applications they used and how they used them to manage their time. I also
asked them about their attitude toward such tools and what functions the ap-
plications performed for them. Moreover, the respondents brought up imaginary
applications, thus revealing their unfulfilled needs regarding time management.
The cases selected for this article deliver the richest data and enable an in-depth
understanding of how time management technologies affect time management.
The collected material was analyzed through the lens of theories concerning
social time transformation, based on which I coded the interviews (Holton, 2007)
in terms of predefined categories (Crabtree and Miller, 1992) used for describing
information and designing topics (Creswell, 2013). Analyzing the data collected
during the interviews enabled me to understand the potential effect of applications
on users and the technology-mediated social experience of time and to identify the
related paradoxes. The analytic part of the article consists of three sections. Their
titles correspond to the paradoxes that emerged in the process of coding the
interviews.

The first paradox: remembering to remember

The so-called project management applications serve the purpose of taking
control over time. These tools were created to organize, optimize, and streamline
the process of task performance, reducing time to an organizing framework for
various kinds of human activity. The respondents mainly used applications such
as Trello and Asana, consisting of lists, columns, and cards, on which individual
activities are listed with deadlines. People who try to coordinate their work using
tools of this type usually create three sections: (1) to do, (2) doing, and (3) done
(following the Kanban method), which reveals linear thinking about time. These
“virtual boards,” as the interlocutors called them, do not have the spatial limits of
a corkboard, which is why they enable the coordination of countless activities and
projects simultaneously. Individuals use these tools to coordinate their work time
against various life domains, seeking to reconcile different activities they engage
in simultaneously and to control their incompatible rhythms. The need to co-
ordinate time utilizing new technologies is felt particularly in the case of too many
Strzelecka 7

tasks, as my interviewees said: “when so much of the petty rubbish has piled up …
when I cannot sort it all out anymore … in critical situations.”
Tadeusz is an especially interesting respondent, as he leads an education
association. He notes that the association has expanded enough to coordinate
many projects simultaneously. Some of these projects include up to seven
partners, demanding that employees use Trello. He believes that Trello is nec-
essary to coordinate these complex tasks, primarily that the employees work
remotely. Applications like Trello allow the team to work remotely and imple-
ment high-budget projects. Tadeusz noticed resistance from his employees in
using the application, but he could not see another possibility for the association
to prosper.
The interviews also show that those applications are used when working at an
office and when working remotely, which involves the blurring of boundaries
between free time and work time. People try to combine their private and
professional lives through the new technologies (Niehaus, 2013). Especially in
Poland, where the government has introduced solutions to establish flexible
employment conditions to optimize employment cost and process (Ga˛ decki,
2017:3). The standard and mobile access to the information stored in them is
a feature used to cope with this temporality that is not defined by clear-cut
boundaries. Some of the interviewees pointed out the usefulness of project
management applications in coordinating and synchronizing different types of
social time, planning, or regulating various rhythms of communal life. Many
respondents believed that the applications are “instant,” “comfortable,” and
“intuitive” to use. In particular, those who coordinate time through the appli-
cations tend to work remotely from home or work in several jobs simultaneously.
For example, Magda, who lives in Poznań, referred to the time management tool
as her “personal activity manager.” Magda works as a university lecturer. She
works mainly remotely from home, where she writes academic publications and
coordinates research. She does not have her own office at the university because
there is not enough space for everyone.
What is more, many interviewees (especially those who work from home)
reported that they used several applications simultaneously. The parallel use of
many tools is associated with the arrival of pointillist time, where the social times
that individuals take part in are more and more numerous. In the Polish multi-
temporal social reality, quickly multiplying social times force the need to merge
those social times. To achieve this, individuals use a variety of time management
applications. However, the growing popularity of such tools results in further
consequences.
Coordination of time through time applications redefines personal memories.
In multi-temporality, where there are too many possibilities for all of them to be
fulfilled, respondents cannot remember all the activities they engage in. New
technologies address this problem, increasing data storage capacity and serving
8 Time & Society 0(0)

individuals as a substitute for their memory. In other words, the applications have
become “memory substitute,” “second memory,” or “a hard disk of sorts.” They
are spoken of as “short-term reminders,” “a database with information on what I
should do.” When remembering is entrusted to applications, the human being
ceases to be a carrier of thoughts and plans and is replaced by more efficient
technology. This process is visible in the confession from Katarzyna, a female
doctor employed at three different institutions. She admits that without an ap-
plication and entering tasks into it, she “would never know when to do things ... or
simply remember about them.” Katarzyna is single and usually spends her free
time organizing trips abroad for her and her friends. She just bought an apartment,
which she is currently decorating. Katarzyna notes in the interview that she has
never been as busy as she is right now. Kinga, aged 34, is an archaeologist
employed on a research project and working mainly from home. Kinga struggles
to complete her doctoral thesis while being employed by an international cor-
poration. All her activities require that she works remotely from home. Kinga
stressed that since she stopped using time management applications, she expe-
rienced fatigue: “All notes are simply in my head and take my energy away every
day … Previously I could just open and see all the stuff, then close it and stop
thinking about it.” In contrast, a few other interviewees felt relieved to be able to
free their memory from having to remember: “When I make a note about
something in the application, I do not have to remember about it. It is easier for me
that way because I do not have to be stressed” (Łukasz); “so that I do not need to
have it at the back of my mind all the time” (Karina); “I am sure not to forget”
(Szymon).
It might appear that using time management applications helps organize tasks,
supporting individuals’ memory. However, even those respondents who initially
seemed to benefit from time management applications expressed some concern
about overusing them. However, many interviewees forget that these tools are
available and fail to log in or only occasionally enter tasks. For example, Adam is
a psychologist who works in a psychiatric hospital and runs his practice. He
admits that he only uses a time management application “once in a while when
(he) remembers to do it.”
On the other hand, Karolina, who works remotely organizing film festivals and
tours, engages in social work and continues with her two doctoral programs (one
in Poland and one in France), is trying to facilitate her professional engagement by
using project management applications. However, she refers to them as requiring
“to remember to remember,” thus pointing at their paradoxical nature. Namely,
managing time through applications complicates the nature of contemporary
temporality instead of coordinating and organizing it. The emotional repercussion
of this contradiction is that not everyone is satisfied with the way such tech-
nologies work because one must remember to use them first. For instance,
Strzelecka 9

negative emotions about using applications were expressed by Bartosz, who is an

employee of a large cultural organization and a teacher in a high school.
Similarly, Marek emphasizes he “hate(s) … tools and organizers, because he
forgets where to find things and he cannot find them” and that he “has to re-
member to log in.” Marek has two businesses in Wrocław, where he also owns
a small apartment. Additionally, he works remotely from home, located about
1 hour from the city, where he lives with his wife and a small child. He uses
a classical paper-based calendar and writes to-do lists in notebooks. Zuzanna, the
president of a foundation at one of the Polish universities, expressed rather
negative attitudes toward the application: “I have never liked such things because
you always have to log in, and I simply forget about it.” Zuzanna travels a lot
because she lives in both Warsaw (where her husband works) and Wrocław
(where she works). She also participates in conferences and volunteers in
a student organization. Despite having a good knowledge of time management
applications, Zuzanna uses a paper-based calendar:

I always have a piece of paper with me, and usually, I use one paper per day, simply
writing what I need to do and then deleting tasks that I complete. I use drawings to
prioritize different tasks. After one day, I copy tasks that I did not accomplish today
to be accomplished tomorrow, and I keep going. I would not be able to ‘contain my
life in time management applications, and I would probably waste much time
clicking and filling out the missing information.

Similar conclusions were reached by Judy Wajcman (2018), who demon-

strated that digital applications do not offer as good opportunities to coordinate
the complexity of tasks as do traditional paper-based calendars.
Stories from the respondents show internal contradictions in project man-
agement applications. These new technologies, such as speed or lack of limi-
tations associated with the material form, do not produce greater organizational
outcomes in contemporary temporality. In practice, the same tools that serve the
organization’s purpose are making the coordination of time increasingly tricky
and the multi-temporal structure of social reality increasingly complicated. The
neoliberal lifestyle demands from individuals that they coordinate many social,
private and professional roles simultaneously. It is so inconvenient that the re-
spondents often choose analog task organizing, including paper-based lists and
calendars.
Paradoxically, in the even more complex structure of social time, time
management applications increase time coordination. Some respondents ex-
pressed the need for increasing technology-mediated control of time. They
fantasized about more abstract and futuristic tools, such as “a voice assistant,
linked with augmented reality,” or “a meter in your head,” “a time calculator” that
would compute “the actual time needed to do specific things,” or predict “how
10 Time & Society 0(0)

much time things take.” They wished for a tool that would “record everything and
remind you about it, too.” Regardless of the form that the perfect time man-
agement tool would take, it is expected to ensure the complete automation of
recording, collecting, storing, and processing information to make entering data
into the application even faster, more straightforward, systematized, and orderly.
In this perfect futuristic form, the use of applications would not involve the
consequences of time coordination referred to as “remembering to remember.”

The second paradox: planning to plan

The contemporary attitude to time is marked by a focus on the future and
planning. Individuals are expected to know how to decide what to do with a finite
resource of time. They are encouraged to take responsibility and to adopt an
entrepreneurial approach to self-organization. Following the idea of a person
deciding for themselves, a competent individual manages their time correctly
because unmanaged time is wasted. Believing that they are responsible for their
actions, including their successes and failures, individuals attempt to plan their
time using new technologies for this purpose. In the interviews, it turned out that
some interviewees used Eisenhower Matrix applications, such as Nozbe and
TaskCracker. The Eisenhower Matrix method of time management relies on
listing all activities that one is planning to do in both a short- and a long-term
perspective and then assigning them to four categories: important urgent, un-
important urgent, important non-urgent, and unimportant non-urgent.
Important and urgent activities are pressing matters that need to be attended to
as soon as possible, such as paying the bills. The next category covers important
but not urgent activities and requires systematic work for results to appear in the
future. An activity that may serve as an example is writing a doctoral dissertation.
According to the assumptions of the Eisenhower Matrix, where time is treated as
a means to an end, one should only perform the tasks classified into these first two
categories: (1) urgent and vital and (2) non-urgent and essential. According to the
logic reproduced by such tools, one should avoid inefficient activities belonging
to the third and fourth categories because they do not lead to accomplishing one’s
goals or even distract from achieving them. Instead, the unimportant but urgent
tasks should be “delegated”—assigned to other people. Managing time by off-
loading the activities one considers unimportant onto others is meant to leave
more time for doing “important” things that pave the way to individual success.
Therefore, it is a strategy that aims to multiply benefits, ensure material profit, and
gain a social advantage (Adam et al., 2002).
The last category is unimportant non-urgent tasks. It is recommended not to do
the tasks classified into this category at all. Tomasz (28), decorating his apartment
in Warsaw, editor of a theater magazine, university lecturer, writer, and a film
critic, follows this recommendation:
Strzelecka 11
I use elements of the Eisenhower Matrix, and I mark the categories with appropriate
colors. As far as I remember, the urgent tasks are green; others are yellow, orange,
and red – the red ones I hardly ever do at all. (…) The red color is for unimportant
and non-urgent things, mainly ones I would like to do just for myself, such as write
an article or text for my pleasure, but I never or very seldom do it.

The activities that give Tomasz the greatest pleasure do not bring material
gains, so he perceives them as unimportant and non-urgent. This strategy is aimed
at saving time to be filled with tasks yielding notable benefits. Dividing time
between important versus unimportant and urgent versus non-urgent activities
leads to perceiving time in economic terms through the lens of gains and losses. In
this perspective, time is treated as a valuable commodity that ought to be managed
appropriately.
Eisenhower Matrix applications are a commercial product addressing the
neoliberal need to use time efficiently and effectively. Some interviewees believe
that these tools allow them to assess the value of their activities or, as remarked by
Mikołaj, who works in the restaurant business as an event organizer, and the
owner of a rental apartment, they help to “prioritize things nicely, from the
important ones, through less important ones, and so on.” Using such technologies
is one of the strategies aimed at focusing individuals on achieving the goals that
have been set by organizing activities and dividing time between activities.
Applications such as Nozbe or TaskCracker intensify the neoliberal transmutation
of time (Sugarman and Thrift, 2017), which means they extend the values as-
sociated with a free market, such as efficiency, productivity, and flexibility, to
thinking about individuals’ temporality. The interviewees use applications to plan
their time in such a way that it is filled with activities that are helpful and, at the
same time, creative. In other words, the use of such tools reproduces the neoliberal
logic in shaping the approach to time.
However, it turns out that Eisenhower Matrix applications create a contra-
diction in the experience of social time. Time management enthusiasts sometimes
promise that new technologies will help people decide what to do with finite time,
manage it, and skilfully divide it among specific tasks, set priorities, and plan their
work. Nevertheless, many interviews concerning the functioning of the appli-
cations reveal a discrepancy between these promises and their actual effect on the
experience of time. Some of my interviewees criticized tools of this kind more
often than they praised them. They claimed that using new technologies took too
much time and that adding tasks to applications only impeded their performance.
For example, Zuzanna, the president of a foundation, said: “I waste more time
clicking and updating all the stuff, seeing to things there, thinking about what to
write and what to tick off than simply doing what needs to be done.” However,
Karolina (28), a travel blogger and the organizer of a film festival, has made many
attempts to plan everything out using an application. She confessed, however, that
12 Time & Society 0(0)

she never used these plans, explaining: “Because it is sort of… for me, it was sort
of planning to plan. It is just too detailed for me.” These words perfectly convey
the nature of the paradoxical effect of the applications, which are meant to help
manage time using the Eisenhower Matrix method, but which instead generate
time management difficulties and only contribute to the wasting of time.
A consequence of the contradictions in the experience of time is the fact that
many people are unable to plan tasks in time and find it difficult to make de-
cisions; very often, they do not know what activities to fill their time with and
what to choose from the immense store of possibilities available. Lacking this
ability, some expressed the need for applications that independently decide what
is essential and urgent, thereby relieving individuals from this responsibility.
Aleksander (35), who claims he works 15 h a day (he has full-time employment
with a corporation, 4 days in the office and 1 day from home, after work he attends
training which could help him to get promoted), would like this kind of appli-
cation to show him “some kind of added value, so that he knows, for instance,
what it is pointless for him to do or even stupid, so to speak.” He would like
devices that manage time on their own, to think for him, to plan out and organize
work, to analyze and advise him on “how to use the time,” to send messages such
as “Hey! Leave that and do this now!”, and to determine the advisability of
engaging in certain activities. The perfect application would be a rational and
superintelligent tool that diagnoses individuals’ personality “having just sort of
scanned my entire brain, personality, and work,” Based on the collected in-
formation, it would set the priorities and determine the consequences and future
outcomes of the actions taken. Artificial intelligence in the application would
perform advanced analysis, based on which it would decide on its own. The time
management tools that my interlocutors imagined would perfectly accomplish
what is attempted by the existing applications, but they would put even more
ambitious ideas into practice. They would help make choices and decisions for
individuals on what to do with the time given to them, excluding humans from
independent decision-making. Applications improved to the highest possible
degree would no longer have the paradoxical effect on the experience of time,
referred to as “planning to plan.”

The third paradox: accelerating acceleration

The role of new technologies is to organize activities, which involves the
maximum intensification of time through an efficient division of work into stages.
Currently, this fragmentation is achieved through online tools such as Focus
Booster or Flat Tomato. They are among the so-called Pomodoro Timer appli-
cations. Their functioning is based on the Pomodoro technique, popular in time
management, which uses the (tomato-shaped) kitchen timer. These tools make it
possible to divide time into intervals and decompose the planned tasks into
Strzelecka 13

fragments. They work like a clock that determines the rhythm of work divided
into longer sessions with shorter breaks between them. Following the Pomodoro
technique, one should work in time blocks of 25 min each, divided by 3- to 5-min
breaks. After four such sessions, there ought to be a more extended break lasting
15–30 min. Before starting work, one should list 25-min tasks to be done during
the day. The use of Pomodoro Timer applications is supposed to ensure in-
dividuals’ higher productivity.
Pomodoro Timer applications are an example showing that the process of
Taylorization has gone beyond brick factories. With the arrival of the information
revolution, neoliberalism has extended to many aspects of human life, which have
undergone specialization and fragmentation. Tools of this kind change the quality
of time by giving it a form of diffused task-orientedness; they enhance the process
of fragmentation, characteristic of Euro-American industrial civilization, where
“time is hacked up into such small pieces that there is hardly anything left of it”
(Eriksen, 2001: 6). The functioning of applications supports the development of
“post-Fordist society, one that is predicated upon acceleration, flexibility and the
‘informationalization’ of nearly every register of economy and society” (Hassan,
2009). The interviewees use new technologies based on the Pomodoro technique
to motivate themselves to work. They try to do tasks to the rhythm resembling
what we know from capitalistic and industrial ways of managing time, chiefly
associated with Taylorism and Fordism, whose main symbol is the assembly line.
Just like dividing production into stages in a factory was a strategy that made it
possible to increase the production rate on the assembly line, my interviewees use
applications nowadays to achieve better effects by doing tasks more quickly.
Kinga, a self-employed wedding photographer, is busy during weekends from
May to October. She reports weddings. Each wedding produces about 4000
photos, and therefore, she spends long hours selecting and editing photos. She
confesses:

I have to motivate myself to do things, to have them all done on time, and what helps
me do that is setting alarms on my mobile every 15 minutes; I tell myself: “All right,
I’ll work continuously for a while now and do nothing else,” and very often when
the 15 minutes are up I already have a sort of good flow, work is going fine, so I carry
on for another 15 minutes and end up a little ahead of schedule.

Kinga studied the English language, and after she graduated, she worked in
a corporate environment. She “survived” 4 years in two different companies.
However, she was frustrated with an inflexible work schedule that forced her to
spend time in the office on days of very few tasks that needed her attention. Other
issues were limited vacation days and difficulties to go on vacation. As a result,
she quit her corporate job 1 year before the interview and now considers herself
a freelancer. Although Pomodoro divides larger tasks into smaller activities, it
14 Time & Society 0(0)

motivates Kinga to complete less exciting tasks, including answering emails,

booking upcoming sessions, sending packages, meeting with customers, ac-
counting, and marketing.
Also, Agnieszka (27) admitted that she motivated herself to work every day by
doing ten 25-min sessions thanks to the Pomodoro technique. Agnieszka claims
that Pomodoro helped to stay effective for some time. She needed this because she
kept her blog and activity on social media and pursued two doctorates simul-
taneously in two different cities (Poznań and Warsaw). With Pomodoro, she
motivated herself to engage in these activities, multiplying commitments and
dividing them into “smaller tasks.” Using the time management of Pomodoro, she
tried to cope with the neoliberal pressures of multiple jobs. However, did Po-
modoro help Agnieszka? In fact, during the interview, she also revealed that after
she worked “with Pomodoro,” she experienced depression for several months,
which was likely triggered by overworking. This condition stemmed from
completing too many tasks simultaneously. Using Pomodoro triggered over-
burdening and was experienced as imposed by a culture obsessed with managing
time. Agnieszka’s experiences are an example of how participants in the neo-
liberal spectacle react to the everyday demands of the rushing reality, in which one
must continually strive to be efficient and constantly stimulate oneself to work.
However, the price they pay for taking part in the spectacle is mental disorders.
It may not seem very surprising that the subject of planning and time man-
agement comes up increasingly often in the context of job burnout (Ga˛ decki,
2017:1). However, in the case of time management tools, there are negative
consequences associated with the culture of acceleration. Applications fuel an
obsessive need to engage in many activities while leading to stress caused by
a chronic lack of time. The speed of information, communication, and new
technologies induce a constant short of time. Among the interviewees, some
people felt frustration induced by tasks being performed too slowly and not being
ticked off the digital checklist quickly enough. For example, Marta (34), who runs
her own business in Gdańsk, emphasized her exhaustion with such tools, which
made her feel “overwhelmed by everything.” Marta works in church statue
restoration. She has a basement workshop at the in-law’s house. She also works
with 2D graphics, illustrations, purse making. To organize everyday tasks, she
uses “folders.” Marta is satisfied with the system she invented and intentionally
avoids time management applications, believing they negatively impact her life.
According to Konrad, the speed enhanced by new technologies creates
pressure that is “ultimately unbearable for the human organism.” Konrad is
employed full-time in a cultural institution in Warsaw. He is additionally engaged
in a non-governmental organization, which supports openness to new technol-
ogies. While many of his colleagues use Pomodoro, he writes reports openly
discussing adverse outcomes of misguided use of new technologies. For example,
Konrad believes that time management applications do not increase productivity.
Strzelecka 15

Konrad’s opinion is supported by several studies (i.e., Cifrić 2010; Rifkin, 1987:
186; Virilio, 2000): namely, the modern pace of life and new technologies ex-
ceeded human biological capacities and human ability to adapt.
Pomodoro Timer applications influence the experience of time passing in two
ways. On the one hand, using the applications is a strategy that people develop
when faced with the lack of time stemming from the fragmentation of social time
and the constant increase in the amount of information, impossible to follow up.
Tools of this kind are meant to motivate people to work so that more efficient
performance makes it possible to do their tasks faster and save time for other
activities. On the other hand, the use of Pomodoro Timer applications results in
increasing difficulties with time management. ICTs create a high-paced reality in
which it becomes impossible to manage one’s time. As a result, the interviewees
experience cognitive dissonance, a discrepancy between the stated aims and the
actual results of using new technologies. The observed paradox can also be called
“accelerating acceleration.” This expression underscores that the use of appli-
cations accelerates the time that is already rushing extremely fast and contributes
to an increase in time-space compression, which can be perceived as an alternative
way of describing fast pace in the social reality (Harvey, 1990: 284–285; Sabelis,
2002: 90). The presented contradiction leads to a problematic phenomenon that,
as observed by Eriksen (2001), consists of time flying faster and faster and
dwindling increasingly due to the arrival of new technologies. The reviewers of
the book titled Tyranny of the Moment write: “Time-saving techniques can even
lead to time loss, and the enormous growth of the flow of information through ICT
can lead to … more confusion” (Boersma and Kingma, 2002: 354). As a result of
this paradox, some people distrust such tools and even show aversion to them.
As a result of negative experiences associated with the fragmentation, ac-
celeration, and compression of time, my interviewees wished they could slow
down or even stop time. Contrary to the logic, according to which time should be
used efficiently, they would sometimes like to experience it to no purpose. They
wish they had such abstract tools as “a time-stopping button, … a time bender, …
a time reverser, or … a time-space bubble” that preserves objects inside it. For
example, entrepreneur Krzysztof (37) would like to have a “time decelerator,”
a device extending the length of hours, to obtain more time “simply to be for
a while.” Krzysztof carries his laptop and mobile internet everywhere, claiming
that he completes many tasks “in-between” and “on the run.” He carries his work
with him. He often works 12–14 h leading to exhaustion.
On the other hand, Michał (33), who lives in Warsaw, already needs a “time
halter” to be able to “stop, have a cup of coffee, rest, go for a walk, go to the
cinema, then switch time on to flow again.” Michał works in four companies as
a therapist and educationalist. He confesses he sometimes works about 14 h per
day because he travels around Poland and leads workshops. He wears a puls-
ometer, which ensures he sleeps on average 8 h per day each month. In contrast,
16 Time & Society 0(0)

Zuzanna (30), the owner of a private education center, would like to use a “time
stretcher” to make her time “flow slower so that I have more of it at my disposal
compared to how it flows for other people.” Zuzanna works 12 h per day, and she
would like to reduce time at work because she feels mentally exhausted. Zuzanna
wants to quit individual tutoring and organize group-based coaching instead. She
hopes she can continue to earn well but work less. Another interviewee, Karolina,
who is employed at an investment bank and usually works after hours, wishes she
had a “remote control” that “would stop everything except me because I am
usually short of time, somehow.” Karolina graduated with a business degree and
worked in banking. On average, Karolina works about 9 h per day, but she
happened to work 13 h. She is usually back home around 20:00 and tries to spend
some time with her child, Marcel. She feels guilty that she cannot spend enough
time with him. The primary function of the tools imagined by the interviewees is
not to manage time but to put a stop to the acceleration of time, to counteract the
negative consequences that stem from the paradox of “accelerating acceleration.”
The functioning of the imaginary technologies would serve the purpose of
stopping the ongoing activity and the continual motivation to work, preventing
the detrimental outcomes of tools such as Pomodoro Timer applications.

Conclusion
The research results presented in the article show how new technologies influence
the social dimension of time and reveal the paradoxical nature of this experience.
In other words, time management applications have an ambivalent effect on the
form of social temporality. In temporality mediated by such tools, mutually
exclusive ways of thinking function simultaneously. The coexistence of con-
tradictory temporal structures can be observed in individuals’ social practices and
strategies when faced with the lack of time. The technologies discussed in the
article are meant to contribute to the development and self-fulfillment of in-
dividuals, who are expected to be self-responsible for planning their time.
However, attempts to manage time or oneself in time through ICTs often prove
counterproductive. The use of time management applications leads to time
paradoxes in three different ways.
The first time paradox, “remembering to remember,” is associated with time
coordination using project management applications. Tools of this kind are meant
to structure and synchronize time, control it by organizing individuals’ activities,
and help them remember tasks to be done. To satisfy needs to organize time, the
applications are based on the premise that individuals can function in the con-
temporary multitasking culture of multiple rhythms, which constitutes an in-
creasingly severe challenge in heterotemporality. The contradiction inherent in
such tools is that using them makes coordinating tasks in time more difficult.
According to some of my interviewees, the solution to this paradox is the even
Strzelecka 17

greater need for time coordination, mediated by new technologies. The appli-
cation should be automated enough to do all the activities involved in recording,
coordinating, and remembering tasks set in time for the user.
The second time paradox, “planning to plan,” is associated with using Ei-
senhower Matrix applications. Tools of this kind are supposed to make it easier for
individuals to achieve goals, helping them decide what to do with time. Thus, the
neoliberal logic becomes a resource. The effect of ICTs on the experience of
temporality is ambivalent, however. It turns out that the use of such applications
contributes to wasting time because operating the applications takes much time,
which is why entering tasks into an application only impedes their performance.
Additionally, the respondents felt torn between their values and what is es-
sential for social and economic benefits. As a result, despite using applications,
they have difficulties making decisions and remain dissatisfied with setting
priorities. Some people believe that this kind of paradox could be solved by means
of intelligent and rational time management tools, which would entirely replace
humans in decision-making and priority setting.
The third paradox, “accelerating acceleration,” is associated with time frag-
mentation through Pomodoro Timer applications. Tools of this kind are used to
increase work motivation and efficiency and save time. However, also, in this
case, the interviews revealed an application-related contradiction. In reality, new
technologies lead to negative consequences associated with the increasing pace of
life. They cause a sense of permanent lack of time, continual exhaustion, stress,
and sometimes also depression. They decrease work efficiency and motivation.
Instead of liberating spirits from heterotemporality, ICTs increase it. According to
some interlocutors, this paradox could only be solved through abstract time-
stopping technologies of the future.
The time paradoxes analyzed in the article stem from the difference between
linear time and multi-temporality. The order of time understood linearly is sought
through time management tools, which enable individuals to act in a coordinated
and organized manner according to clock time. At the same time, the interviews
show that applications support the process of acceleration, desynchronization,
and the blurring of boundaries of social time, thus enhancing multi-temporality.
As a result, the use of applications generates time rhythms that are one another’s
opposites. They combine slowness and speed within the framework of one global
culture; they distort the perception of time by condensing it and accelerating it.
They are a strategy both liberating and controlling the temporality of individuals,
thus generating constant tension. New technologies lead to a vicious circle effect,
which can be briefly described as follows: Increasingly advanced technologies
taming temporality lead to the acceleration of the pace of life. The higher the pace
of social time, the greater the need to control it, resulting in increasingly complex
time management applications. These, in turn, lead to a faster pace of life. This
is the mechanism that—through time management applications—fuels the
18 Time & Society 0(0)

neoliberal power structure, supports the logic of the system, and entangles in-
dividuals in this system, in which they experience continual exhaustion.

Declaration of conflicting interests

The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to the research,
authorship, and/or publication of this article.

Funding
The author(s) disclosed receipt of the following financial support for the research, au-
thorship, and/or publication of this article: This article is an outcome of the project
“Choreography of temporality: cultural practices of time management,” no. 2017/27/N/
HS3/00479, supported by the National Science Centre, Poland.

ORCID iD
Celina Strzelecka  https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7729-0075

Notes
1. Neoliberalism is “a radicalised form of capitalism, based on deregulation and the
restriction of state intervention, and characterized by an opposition to collectivism”
(Hilgers, 2011: 352). Neoliberal logic includes exemplifying the discourse of
personal responsibility, efficiency, utility, and productivity of social subjects, ac-
companied by values such as flexibility, innovativeness, and creativity (Ga˛ decki,
2017:2; Hassan, 2009, 2012; Wacquant, 2012: 66). Neoliberal logic understands all
human activities as market transactions “occurring in an infinitely short time, and
repeated at an infinitely fast rate” (Treanor, 2015: 15). Contemporary neoliberalism
is premised on the belief that the social good is best served by bringing market
rationality to all human action and endeavor order domains.
2. Probably the only study devoted to a particular technology is Judy Wajcman’s The
Digital Architecture of Time Management. Wajcman studied a scheduling application
called Timeful. She conducted an extensive field study in the Silicon Valley, involving
interviews with engineers, designers, producers and consumers of Timeful. Wajcman
shows that scheduling tools such as Timeful are intended to mechanize and optimalize
human thought and action and aim at making humans more efficient. Yet, in effect
they “modulate and configure our consciousness of temporality,” encoding “a
quantitative, utilitarian philosophy of time” (Wajcman, 2018: 18–19).
3. Questionnaire is available at: https://choreography-of-time.weebly.com/publications-
and-conferences.html

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