How Parkinson’s Can Change the Way You Think About Time
Time can feel different after Parkinson’s enters your life. A diagnosis can create an unmistakable dividing line between the life you assumed would unfold and the life you now have to navigate with more uncertainty, attention, and intention. The hours on a clock have not changed, but your relationship with them can. Plans may require more flexibility. Ordinary tasks may deserve more breathing room. The future can feel less theoretical, while the present becomes harder to overlook.
For Greg Schaefer, whose life brings together family, entrepreneurship, endurance sports, advocacy, and living with Young-Onset Parkinson’s, forward motion is not about pretending time does not matter. It is about deciding what deserves the time you have. His broader story, shared on the About Greg page, reflects a perspective shaped not by a single diagnosis, race, or business chapter, but by what happens when all of those experiences meet.
Quick answer: How can Parkinson’s change your relationship with time?
- You may begin allowing more time for everyday life. Movement changes, fatigue, or changes in attention and thinking can affect how some people approach routines and schedules.
- The future may feel less predictable. Parkinson’s varies widely from person to person, which can make rigid long-term assumptions harder to hold onto.
- The present can become more valuable. When certainty decreases, ordinary moments, relationships, and experiences may carry more weight.
- Priorities can become clearer. Time may start to feel less like something to fill and more like something to invest deliberately.
The clock stays the same, but the calculation changes
Before a major health change, many people operate as though time is infinitely adjustable. The meeting can run long. The trip can happen next year. The phone call can wait. The race, project, dinner, or family weekend can always be moved somewhere else on the calendar.
Parkinson’s can challenge that assumption. This does not mean every day becomes urgent or that life should turn into a frantic attempt to do everything immediately. It can mean becoming more selective. There is a difference between treating time as scarce and treating it as valuable.
That distinction matters. Scarcity can create panic. Value can create focus.
For someone who has spent years in business or endurance sports, that shift may feel familiar in an unexpected way. A race has a start line and a finish line. A company has seasons, deadlines, opportunities, and decisions that cannot be postponed forever. Family life has moments that do not repeat on command. Parkinson’s can bring those realities into sharper focus because the future may no longer feel like a blank calendar waiting to be filled.
Daily time may need more margin
There is also a practical side to this conversation. Parkinson’s can affect movement and may also be associated with non-movement symptoms, including fatigue and changes in attention or thinking for some people. The experience varies widely, and none of these changes should be assumed to affect every person in the same way.
The Parkinson’s Foundation notes that some people experience changes involving attention, memory, language, or problem-solving. APDA also describes fatigue as a significant issue for some people with Parkinson’s, potentially making routine physical or mental activities more demanding. Those realities can change the mathematics of a normal day.
A schedule that once had ten minutes of margin may need thirty. Getting ready for an event may require a calmer start. Back-to-back commitments may become less appealing. Multitasking may be replaced by doing one important thing at a time. A training day may need to account for how the body is responding instead of following the calendar simply because the calendar says so.
None of this automatically represents retreat. Sometimes margin is strategy. In business, athletics, and life, the strongest plan is not always the fullest one. It is often the plan with enough room to adapt when reality changes.
The future can become both more complicated and more meaningful
Planning ahead with Parkinson’s contains a real tension. Ignoring the future is rarely useful, but trying to control every detail of it can be exhausting. The Michael J. Fox Foundation has emphasized that future changes in Parkinson’s can be difficult to predict and that planning ahead may help some people feel more prepared and engaged in daily life.
That leaves room for a healthier middle ground: prepare without surrendering the present.
You can have the practical conversations that matter. You can organize information, ask questions, think about support, and make responsible plans. At the same time, you can refuse to let every future possibility occupy today’s mental space.
This is one of the more overlooked ways a diagnosis can alter your relationship with time. The question changes from, “Can I predict exactly what happens next?” to, “What can I do with this day while preparing responsibly for what may come?”
That second question offers more room to live.
Ordinary moments can stop feeling ordinary
People often talk about appreciating the present as though it were a motivational slogan. In real life, presence is usually much less dramatic. It can mean staying at the dinner table a little longer. It can mean noticing the people who showed up. It can mean taking the trip instead of endlessly discussing the trip. It can mean being fully present for a child’s story, a training session, a quiet morning, a conversation with a spouse, or a walk that would once have registered as completely routine.
Parkinson’s does not automatically make someone enlightened about time. There can still be frustration, distraction, impatience, fear, ambition, and ordinary bad days. The point is not to romanticize a neurological condition. The point is that adversity can force questions we were previously able to postpone.
What am I spending my days on? Who gets my attention? Which commitments matter? What am I delaying for no meaningful reason? Which goals still belong to me, and which ones am I pursuing because I never stopped to reconsider them?
Those are not Parkinson’s questions alone. They are human questions. Parkinson’s can simply make them harder to avoid.
Time can become less about speed and more about direction
Endurance athletes understand that moving forward is not synonymous with moving fast. There are stretches when the pace changes. Conditions shift. The original plan stops matching the reality on the course. Success may depend on adjustment rather than force.
The same distinction can matter in life with Parkinson’s. A slower day is still a day. A revised goal is still a goal. Asking for support does not erase independence. Changing the route does not automatically mean abandoning the destination.
This is where Greg’s core message, “One More Step… Just One More,” carries weight beyond athletics. It does not demand that every step be fast, impressive, or visible to anyone else. It centers the decision to continue.
That philosophy also informs the mission behind the Forward Motion Fund, which connects Greg’s experience with broader support for Parkinson’s research, partners and caregivers, challenged athletes, and youth and education initiatives.
Four ways to protect what matters most
Build margin instead of apologizing for it
If certain routines require more time, scheduling that time can be a practical adjustment rather than a personal failure. The goal is not to keep proving you can operate on yesterday’s timetable. The goal is to create a timetable that serves today’s reality.
Separate important from merely urgent
A full calendar can create the illusion of a meaningful life. They are not the same thing. Consider which commitments connect to family, health, purpose, work that matters, community, and relationships worth protecting. Some urgent things need attention. Others are simply loud.
Plan for the future without living there
Responsible planning can reduce avoidable uncertainty, but there is no requirement to mentally rehearse every possible future. Handle the decisions that can reasonably be handled, involve qualified professionals when appropriate, and return attention to the life that is happening now.
Measure progress by direction
Progress can look different across seasons. Sometimes it is a finish line. Sometimes it is a difficult conversation, a modified training session, a business decision, asking for help, showing up for family, or simply taking the next useful step. Direction can remain meaningful even when pace changes.
What people often miss
Parkinson’s can change how someone thinks about time without making every moment solemn or profound. Life still includes errands, jokes, deadlines, bad traffic, work, family chaos, training days, celebrations, disappointments, and ordinary Tuesdays. The deeper shift may be simpler: you become less willing to assume that the things that matter can always be postponed.
Frequently asked questions
Does Parkinson’s literally change a person’s sense of time?
This article is primarily about a person’s relationship with time rather than claiming that Parkinson’s universally alters time perception. Parkinson’s can affect movement, energy, attention, thinking, and daily routines in different ways, and those changes may influence how a person plans and experiences a day. Individual experiences vary, so concerns about cognitive or neurological changes should be discussed with a qualified healthcare professional.
Why might someone with Parkinson’s allow more time for daily activities?
Some people experience movement changes, fatigue, or changes in attention and thinking that can make certain activities more demanding. Allowing additional time, reducing unnecessary multitasking, or creating more flexible schedules may be practical ways to reduce pressure. The right approach depends on the individual.
Is it useful to plan far ahead after a Parkinson’s diagnosis?
Planning can be useful, particularly for practical matters that are easier to address thoughtfully rather than during a crisis. At the same time, Parkinson’s can vary significantly between individuals, so planning does not require assuming a specific future. Qualified healthcare, financial, legal, or other professionals can help with decisions in their respective areas.
Can a serious diagnosis change priorities?
It can. Major adversity often prompts people to reconsider how they spend their attention, energy, and time. That response is personal, however, and there is no single correct way someone should feel or behave after a diagnosis.
Keep moving toward what matters
A Parkinson’s diagnosis may change plans, routines, expectations, and the way the future looks from where you are standing. It does not dictate what every remaining day must mean. There is still room for ambition, family, work, competition, humor, purpose, service, frustration, rest, and new goals.
The lesson is not that every second must become productive. It may be almost the opposite. Time does not have to be maximized to be meaningful. It has to be noticed, protected, and spent on what deserves it.
Sometimes forward motion is a major finish line. Sometimes it is a decision made quietly on an ordinary morning. Either way, the next step still counts.
Interested in bringing Greg’s message to your event or organization?
Learn more about Greg’s speaking work or get in touch to start the conversation.
Contact Greg or learn more about the Forward Motion Fund.
This article is for educational purposes only and is not medical advice. For diagnosis, treatment, or personalized medical guidance, please speak with a qualified healthcare professional.
