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Why Do I Always Feel Like I'm Rushing?
You walk quickly, eat quickly, answer the email while you're still thinking about the last one, finish one task and immediately start another. You make dinner while emptying the dishwasher, checking your phone and mentally working out what needs doing tomorrow and even when you're not particularly late, you find yourself hurrying.
If somebody in front of you is walking slowly, taking ages at the checkout or telling you a story that could definitely have been told in half the time, you can feel yourself becoming strangely impatient. Come on....there's somewhere to get to, something else to do.
Except sometimes there isn't. Nobody has given you a deadline, nothing terrible will happen if this takes another ten minutes, you're just... rushing.
If this feels familiar, it may be another way the Racehorse Burnout System, my name for the Urgency pattern, shows up.
Why Do I Always Feel Like I'm Rushing?
For a long time, I thought rushing simply meant I was busy, of course I was moving quickly, I had a lot to do!
And sometimes its true, there are days when we're late, workloads are genuinely heavy or several things really do need to happen in a short space of time, but I eventually started noticing something else: I rushed even when I didn't need to.
If I had an hour to do something that required 40 minutes, I didn't think: "Great, I've got plenty of time", I'd try to get it done in 30. If I finished something earlier than expected, I didn't enjoy the extra time, I filled it. If I had nowhere particularly urgent to be, I still walked as though I did.
The rush wasn't always coming from my diary, sometimes I was bringing the rush with me.
You might recognise this pattern if you:
walk quickly even when you're not late
eat quickly and immediately move on to something else
become impatient when other people move or work more slowly
constantly look for ways to make things faster
start the next task before you've mentally finished the previous one
multitask because doing one thing at a time feels inefficient
feel strangely satisfied when you're ahead of schedule
cram additional tasks into unexpected gaps in your day
find waiting particularly frustrating
struggle to do everyday activities slowly
frequently think, “I'll just quickly do this first”
reach the end of the day wondering why you feel exhausted when nothing particularly dramatic happened.
None of these behaviours automatically means anything is wrong, the question is whether you still feel able to change pace.
Rushing Isn't Quite the Same as Urgency
This is slightly different from feeling that everything needs to be done NOW because you can know perfectly well that something isn't urgent and still do it at speed. Imagine you have an hour to prepare something, there's no pressure, nobody is waiting for it and you have enough time. But you find yourself typing quickly, jumping between tabs, checking emails while you're doing it and thinking about the next task before you've finished this one.
The task isn't urgent, your pace is. That's the distinction I've become interested in, sometimes the Racehorse pattern isn't “this needs doing immediately ” its “whatever I'm doing, I need to get through it quickly.”
The Invisible Finish Line
One reason I think I rushed so much was that there always seemed to be an invisible finish line somewhere ahead of me:
Get this finished.
Then answer those emails.
Then sort that out.
Then get home.
Then make dinner.
Then get everything ready for tomorrow.
Then I can relax.
The problem is that ordinary life doesn't really have a finish line, there's always another email, load of washing, piece of work, appointment, thing you could organise, improve or get ahead with. So if your brain is constantly trying to reach the point where everything is finally dealt with, you can spend an enormous amount of your life racing towards a point that doesn't actually exist.
You don't finish the race, you just keep moving the finish line.
Why Rushing Can Feel Productive
Rushing has a reward built into it because it creates a feeling of progress. You're moving, things are disappearing from the list, you're getting ahead and for a Racehorse, that can feel good. You can become very accustomed to the sense of momentum and stimulation that rushing creates. I used to live for ticking things off my to-do list, so much so I sometimes would add things to my list I knew I had already done, just for the satisfaction of ticking it off.
There can also be a subtle sense of achievement in squeezing more into a period of time than you expected.
A spare 15 minutes appears between meetings? Excellent, answer three emails.
Dinner needs another ten minutes? Great empty the dishwasher.
You're five minutes early? Fantastic reply to that message.
None of those choices is particularly significant on its own but notice what happens over the course of a day, every small pocket of space gets converted into another opportunity to do something. The day becomes highly efficient but it also becomes almost completely devoid of pauses.
The Problem With Saving Time
We're often rushing because we're trying to save time, but what happens to the time we save?
Imagine you do something in 20 minutes instead of 30, you've saved ten minutes but do you sit down for ten minutes? probably not.
If you're anything like I was, you use the ten minutes to do something else, so you rush through that too. The reward for getting things done quickly becomes... more things to do and that's the trap, don't always reward efficiency with more work.
You can become incredibly good at saving time without ever experiencing yourself as having more of it.
Rushing Can Make Everything Feel Like Work
There's another cost I didn't recognise for a long time, when your focus is continually on getting through things, even enjoyable activities can start to become tasks. Cooking becomes something to get finished, walking somewhere becomes about getting there and a conversation happens while you're thinking about what you need to do afterwards. Even leisure can acquire an odd efficiency: Right, I've got an hour. What should I do with it?
The issue isn't simply that you're busy, it's that your attention is continually leaning towards what comes next and that can make it surprisingly difficult to feel present in the life you're working so hard to keep on top of.
Is Rushing Contributing to Burnout?
Rushing doesn't cause burnout by itself, workload, workplace culture, caring responsibilities, health, resources and many other factors can all play a role. But constantly moving at maximum pace can reduce the opportunities for recovery that already exist inside an ordinary day.
The minute between two tasks, the walk to another meeting, eating lunch, waiting for the kettle, the journey home, finishing something earlier than expected. These aren't dramatic forms of rest but they're moments when you could briefly stop pushing forwards.
If you automatically fill or accelerate every one of them, your day can become one long sequence of next, next, next and when that pattern continues for long enough, slowing down can start to feel increasingly unfamiliar.
How Do I Stop Rushing All the Time?
I don't think the answer is to deliberately do everything slowly, that would probably drive most Racehorses mad! Instead, I've found it more useful to practise choosing my pace.
Ask “Am I Actually Late?”
This sounds almost ridiculously simple but if you notice yourself hurrying, ask: “What am I rushing for?” Sometimes there will be a perfectly good answer but other times you may realise you're walking quickly, eating quickly or racing through a task despite having absolutely no need to.
Don't spend every minute you save.
If something takes 20 minutes rather than the 30 you'd allowed, deliberately leave some of those ten minutes unallocated occasionally.
Choose one ordinary thing not to optimise.
Walk to the meeting without trying to get there faster, make the coffee without simultaneously answering an email, eat lunch without trying to complete something else.
Not “be slow all day” just practise discovering that you can choose a different gear.
You Don't Have to Stop Being a Racehorse
I don't particularly want to become someone who moves slowly through everything.
Being able to move quickly, respond to pressure and get things done has been useful to me throughout my life. The aim isn't to lose that ability, its to regain some control over when you use it. There's a difference between being able to move fast and feeling as though you always have to.
Perhaps that's the real question to ask yourself when you notice you're rushing:
“Is something actually asking me to go faster right now or am I doing that all by myself?”
You don't have to stop being a Racehorse but you don't have to gallop through an ordinary Tuesday either.
Ready to Practice Changing Your Pace?
If this article felt familiar, you may have recognised your Racehorse Burnout System, my name for the Urgency pattern. The aim isn't to make you less driven or productive, it's to help you practise noticing when urgency is useful and when you're creating it automatically.
My four-week Racehorse Recovery Guide takes that practice further.
Not Sure If Racehorse Is Your Primary Burnout System?
Most women recognise elements of more than one Burnout System. Take the free 2-minute Burnout Systems Quiz to explore whether Urgency, Over-Responsibility, People-Pleasing or Over Self-Reliance is most likely to be your primary pattern.
Take care,
Mairi x
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