If this month feels unusually scattered and exhausting, you may be experiencing what author Brigid Schulte calls “time confetti.” This describes time throughout a modern day broken into tiny fragments of attention, errands, emails, pickups, and mental multitasking. Many of us feel stretched thin not because we are disorganized, but because our time no longer comes in large, usable blocks. The good news? Those fragmented pockets of time can sometimes work for you instead of against you. We like how psychologist Laurie Santos uses this term to help her students at Yale improve their well-being by working with their scraps of time more intentionally.
Over the years, we’ve noticed that the 20 or 40-minute window of time is what the Cal students we work with dislike the most. Caught on campus or between online meetings, they give up this time in their schedule as nothing more than something to “get through” until the next scheduled thing. There is nothing restorative, freeing, or productive that feels like it can be accomplished in this amount of time.
When life gets busy (“Maycember” is the latest cry for help), the nervous system struggles because there is no true stopping point or rest point. You may think: “I had downtime today, why am I still depleted?” However, we suffer from moving from one thing to another on most days which results in:
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- decision fatigue
- constant partial attention
- invisible coordination work (similar to the “mental load”)
Fragmented downtime doesn’t really restore the brain unless we use it properly. Micro-breaks that are filled with scrolling or admin work (like cycling between your email and calendar apps) don’t count as recovery. We need sustained attention and sustained rest.
You may technically be resting while your brain is still bracing for the next event. (This is also what is happening when we lie awake in the middle of the night!)
Time confetti is the strange experience of feeling like you are both wasting your time and also don’t have enough of it.
Signs You’re Experiencing Time Confetti
- forgetting simple things
- feeling behind all day or inability to start tasks
- irritability, low frustration tolerance
- doom scrolling between obligations
- feeling simultaneously busy and unproductive
- resentment toward small interruptions
- emotional numbness or sudden tears
Instead of seeing “time confetti” as something to avoid, we see it as a part of modern life. While it is important to find time for “deep work” that allows our brains to focus and concentrate, we can also use time confetti to our benefit. It deserves its own “List” wherever you keep your To Do’s. More can be done in 20 to 40 minute blocks than we think!
Keep A Dedicated “Time Confetti List”
Include tasks that can realistically be started, progressed, or completed in 20–40 minutes, and refer to it during these moments:
- returning one email
- folding one load of laundry
- prepping dinner
- paying a bill or scheduling an appointment
- reading 10 pages of a book
- stretching, walking, or sitting outside
- cleaning one surface or one drawer
Protect one transition per day from multitasking:
Drive without making calls. Walk without checking email. Let your brain arrive somewhere fully.
Stop assuming small windows are “throwaway” time.
Our Cal students find they can actually get quite a lot of studying done in 40 minutes. We know because we’ve experimented with them for more than 20 years! Small pockets of intentional action often reduce stress more than waiting for the mythical completely free afternoon. (Have you ever noticed that when you have a completely free Saturday, or no class on Tuesday/Thursday in college that those are your most unproductive days?) While not every gap needs to be productive, structure is very helpful when pursuing pleasure or work.
Last, some forms of time confetti should become actual rest.
Scrolling while mentally preparing for the next thing (including the next thing that pops up on your phone) rarely restores the nervous system. Brief moments of stillness, sunlight, movement, music, or quiet often work better.
The goal is not to optimize every moment or turn yourself into a productivity machine. The goal is to stop feeling powerless inside fragmented time. When we stop viewing these small pieces of the day as meaningless, we often discover they can hold small moments of completion, recovery, and even calm. We’d love to have you share your Time Confetti ideas with friends and family!
