Peter Drucker’s famous phrase, “Know thy time,” carries a gravity that appeals to those seeking to manage their day better, cut through chaos, and make the most of their waking hours. But if you take it at face value, there’s a problem hiding in plain sight: it presumes time is yours.
It isn’t.
Your time is not thine.
That doesn’t mean you have no agency. But it does mean that time doesn’t belong to you. It’s not a possession. You can’t own it, control it, or stash it away. You can’t put it in a drawer, lock it in a vault, or hide it under your pillow.
So if time isn’t something you own, what is it?
A partner.
And like any meaningful partnership, it asks for attention, consistency, and respect.
Drucker Meant Well, But…
Drucker was writing for managers. He wanted people to notice where their time was going and make decisions accordingly. Fair. Necessary. Useful. But the language—”Know thy time”—carries the weight of ownership. As if time is something you command, and once you know it, it bends to your will.
What if the phrase invited curiosity instead of control?
What if instead of knowing time as something you own, you learned to recognize it as something you relate to?
Time doesn’t need to be tamed. It needs to be witnessed.
The False Promise of Ownership
Productivity culture often feeds the fantasy that time can be mastered. We speak in terms that mimic financial planning: spend time, save time, invest time, waste time. These metaphors create the illusion of sovereignty over the ticking clock.
But unlike money, time can’t be accumulated. You don’t get rollover hours at the end of the month. When a minute passes, it’s gone. It doesn’t sit idle in an account waiting to be drawn upon.
You are not a time owner. You are a time dweller.
You live in it, move through it, and only occasionally recognize that you’re in the current.
From Management to Relationship
In The Productivity Diet, I wrote that productivity is not about controlling time, but engaging with it. And that’s the real shift: seeing time as something you don’t dominate but relate to.
Time is your collaborator. It provides a rhythm. It offers structure without demand. It keeps moving, regardless of your agenda.
Instead of asking, “How can I own my time today?” try, “How can I move in partnership with time today?”
You can choose how you show up.
You can choose what you focus on.
You can even choose how to respond when things go off course.
But you can’t choose to pause time.
You can only participate in it.
The Myth of Mastery
The most successful people I know don’t treat time like a resource to be squeezed. They treat it like a relationship to be cultivated. They plan with purpose, but they allow for change. They create boundaries, but they don’t pretend those boundaries make them the boss of time.
In fact, if one side of this relationship owns the other, it’s not you. It’s time.
It will move with or without you.
It will win every argument.
It never compromises.
You don’t own time.
But you can honour it.
Living with Time, Not Against It
So when you hear Drucker’s phrase again—*”Know thy time”—consider what it really means.
It doesn’t mean possess.
It doesn’t mean dominate.
It doesn’t mean master.
It means recognize.
Know how time flows for you.
Know where it welcomes you.
Know when it nudges you to pause, or to push, or to let go.
Your time is not thine.
But it is with you.
And when you treat it like a partner instead of a possession, it might just start treating you like one too.
