THE new sunday express Voices Anand Neelakantan Shinie Antony Dr Alka Pande Ravi Shankar Dr Deepali Bhardwaj Swami Sukhabodhananda MAGAZINE Buffet People Wellness Books Food Art & Culture Entertainment april 5 2026 SUNDAY PAGES 12 All in Good Time In an era of constant connectivity, the rarest luxury is no longer money but uninterrupted time By Konkana Ray The clock is ticking. On a Saturday morning, a laptop lid closes mid-email—the message can wait until Monday Outside, the balcony air is cool and birds hum softly as the CEO . steps out to watch the sunrise; the weekend, for once, not claimed by work. Across town at an airport, someone taps “upgrade,” not for champagne or extra legroom but for the promise of silence—a cocooned seat, noise-cancelling headphones and three hours of being unreachable. In a small kitchen, between the whistle of a pressure cooker and the weight of daily chores, a 10 am alarm rings not for a meeting but for an hour reclaimed by a homemaker; a paintbrush lifted after years, a canvas waiting for a love she once set aside. A cab driver logs out at 9 pm even as orders surge and incentives flash on the screen; he pockets the phone and drives home, unwilling to miss dinner with his wife In the last few years, time has quietly replaced money as the clearest signal of success. Flexible work, shorter weeks, mandatory micro-breaks and early-retirement planning— all point to the reordering of priorities: control over one’s hours now carries more prestige and children, because to him that time is sacrosanct. Elsewhere, a young employee quietly switches her status to “offline” at 6.31 pm, no apology given, the boundary calm but clear. Another sends a two-line email, sets an out-of-office reply and boards a one-way flight, swapping his briefcase for a backpack as he finally takes the trip he had put off for years. Different ages. Different incomes. Different advantages and responsibilities. Yet, running through these small, almost invisible choices is the same understanding: time is limited. And more and more, people are treating it that way For decades, the goal . of Boomers was measured in terms of staying power. Working the longest hours. Keeping the busiest schedule. Letting leave days go unused. Being important meant being always available. But somewhere between burnout, pandemic lessons and endless phone alerts, the math stopped making sense. In recent years, time has quietly replaced money as the clearest sign of success. Flexible work, shorter weeks, planned rest breaks and early retirement—all point to the same change in values: control over one’s hours now carries more respect than a bigger paycheck. This shift is changing how careers are built and judged. Professionals are choosing sideway moves, varied careers or fewer hours, not as settling, but as improvements to their quality of life. Companies, in turn, are rethinking what productivity means—building systems that measure results instead of presence, and keeping staff instead of pushing hustle. The ultimate show of success is the ability to stop and take back your time. Gen Z and younger Millennials speak more openly about mental health, are less willing to praise exhaustion, and are more comfortable holding many identities at once. Working too much, to them, is not a sign of pride. It is not sustainable. Aadishree Dixit, an independent branding consultant, says it simply: “Fair pay respect for time and feeling safe at work , aren’t extras to me. They’re basic conditions.” They are the bare minimum. Early in her career, she accepted hustle culture without question. “I was working in content, which means high output, tight deadlines, little room for mistakes. What I learned is that burnout isn’t a personal failure. It’s often a system problem.” Now, when she has too much on her plate, she says so. “I’d rather show the limits clearly than absorb pressure until quality drops.” She is still practical about financial stability “But I’ve seen what . happens when people drop their boundaries, hoping to be rewarded. The reward rarely satisfies, and recovery takes longer than expected.” Why does time feel like the new status symbol? Perhaps because what is rare has changed—economic growth has raised incomes, but digital speed has squeezed days. Meetings spill into evenings. Alerts take over weekends. Comparison culture makes it seem like everyone else is doing more. In that climate, choosing not to overwork is quietly bold. This is not anti-ambition. It is pro-freedom. The pattern is clear. Earlier generations chased financial security because money was genuinely scarce. Today’s working professionals are facing a different kind of scarcity: mental bandwidth, emotional energy and uninterrupted hours. Clinical psychologist Prachi Saxena places the shift at the crossing point of exposure and self-reflection. “After decades of not having examples of healthy limits,” she says, “social media and exposure to Western individual-focused cultures have given people new ways of thinking. Add to that the rise in therapy’s popularity and people now have tools to , name and practise boundaries.” But beneath the language of boundaries lies something deeper: control. “Stress,” she explains, “is less about the number of hours you have and more about how much control you feel over your life.” Research on “time wealth” supports this idea. Studies by Tim Kasser and Kennon Sheldon in the Journal of Business Ethics found that people who feel time-rich report greater freedom, stronger relationships, and more personal growth. Work by Kirk Warren Brown and Richard Ryan in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology links time wealth to better mindfulness. On the other side, Laura Giurge and Ashley Whillans, writing in Nature Human Behaviour connect time , poverty with mental overload and a reduced ability to experience flow, that deeply focused state linked to Turn to page 2 Chosen Ambition Aarushi Sharma Rai Independent PR and partnerships consultant She left a repetitive corporate cycle to pursue independent consulting, seeking more intentional work and creative freedom. Backed by savings and a strong network, she reframed ambition on her own terms—where hard work is chosen, not automatic