The 25th Hour: Neal Schore on Emotional Time Loss

The Hidden Cost of Productivity: Why Managing Yourself Matters More Than Managing Your Calendar

For decades, the productivity industry has promised that the secret to accomplishing more lies in mastering calendars, email, meetings, and task lists. Every few years, a new system emerges to help people squeeze a little more efficiency from already crowded schedules. Yet despite an endless stream of books, apps, and methodologies, many professionals remain convinced there simply aren't enough hours in the day.

Neal Schore believes they're looking in the wrong place. In his new book, The 25th Hour: How to Thrive (And Gain Ridiculous Amounts of Time) By Getting Out of Your Own Way, Schore argues that our greatest losses rarely occur on our calendars. They happen inside our heads. During our conversation, the entrepreneur and executive coach suggested that the most valuable hours we lose each week disappear not because of poor planning but because of fear, defensiveness, overthinking, and emotional habits that quietly consume attention long after meetings end.

The distinction is more than semantic. It reframes productivity from a logistical challenge into a leadership challenge.

The Visible 10%: Why Traditional Time Management Falls Short

Conventional time-management advice, Schore argues, focuses almost exclusively on visible behaviors—meetings, email volume, scheduling techniques, and collaboration practices. Those matter, but only to a point.

"Conventional wisdom around time management optimizes only part of the whole," he said. "Let's call it the visible 10% of the iceberg. The real cost is sitting underwater, and it's almost entirely about how well you manage yourself."

That hidden cost shows up in ways nearly every executive recognizes. A passing remark from a supervisor becomes an internal debate that lasts all afternoon. A routine email is rewritten repeatedly out of concern for how others might interpret it. A difficult conversation is mentally rehearsed for days, only to conclude uneventfully within minutes.

These invisible losses accumulate into hours that rarely appear on anyone's productivity dashboard.

A Simple Question That Interrupts Emotional Reactions

One of Schore's simplest techniques illustrates how quickly emotional reactions can redirect attention. He encourages people to interrupt their first instinct with a brief question: "What's the intent?"

The pause lasts only seconds, but its purpose is significant. Rather than immediately asking what someone else's comment means about us, Schore recommends asking what that person is actually trying to accomplish.

Before conscious reasoning has a chance to engage, the brain often constructs an elaborate threat narrative. Innocent comments become perceived criticism. Neutral questions become imagined attacks.

"Asking 'What's the intent?' forces a different question into that gap," Schore explained. "Not, 'What did this mean about me?' but rather 'What is this person actually trying to accomplish right now?'"

The practice is less about suppressing emotion than delaying judgment long enough for rational thinking to catch up with emotional reflexes. By creating a brief mental pause, you give yourself the opportunity to respond thoughtfully rather than react impulsively. This single technique can prevent the downward spiral of rumination and misinterpretation that silently drains hours from your workweek.

Over time, this approach helps retrain the brain to default toward curiosity rather than defensiveness. Instead of automatically assuming the worst in ambiguous interactions, you begin to consider alternative explanations. The result is not only better working relationships but also a significant reclaiming of mental energy that was previously lost to unnecessary internal conflict.

Track Emotional Time Loss With a Credits and Debits Log

Schore applies the same philosophy of intentional time management to a specific, often-overlooked area: the minutes lost to emotional spirals. His recommended tool for this is the “Credits and Debits” log.

Most professionals diligently track their expenses, exercise routines, screen time, or financial investments. Yet, very few account for the hours surrendered to imagined conflicts, rumination, or unnecessary worry. Schore’s log brings the same level of rigor to monitoring how much time we spend thinking about a potential outcome.

The true value of this practice isn’t just record-keeping; visibility itself changes behavior. When individuals begin assigning actual minutes to their emotional spirals, they become far more conscious of when they are entering one. This heightened awareness often allows them to interrupt the pattern before losing another hour of productive time.

Reduce Defensiveness to Reclaim Time

Leadership introduces another significant category of hidden time tax: defensiveness. Many managers assume that defending their position preserves authority. Schore argues the opposite is true. Defensiveness extends conversations, undermines credibility, and drains the emotional energy that could be directed toward solving the problem at hand.

“When it comes to time, a ten-minute conversation can turn into 40 because we’re explaining and qualifying instead of just addressing the issue,” he said.

The damage goes beyond a single meeting. Employees quickly learn that raising a concern means first navigating the leader’s emotional reaction before they can even address the actual issue. This dynamic discourages open communication and slows down the entire team.

Schore’s alternative is a practice he calls radical ownership. This involves looking inward first as the fastest path back to control. “The moment you make it someone else’s fault, you’ve handed them control of the outcome,” he explained.

This mindset does not require accepting blame for everything. Rather, it deliberately shifts attention toward the one variable every leader can actually influence: their own personal response. By focusing on this, leaders retain their agency and can move forward more quickly.

Directing Anger and Disappointment Productively

Schore draws a similar distinction when discussing workplace anger. While organizations often treat anger as inherently destructive, he argues that its usefulness depends entirely on its target. He notes a critical difference between anger at someone and anger about something. The first seeks retaliation, while the second seeks improvement.

By identifying exactly what the frustration concerns before reacting, leaders are more likely to channel their emotion toward fixing broken systems rather than attacking individuals. In this sense, emotional intelligence becomes less about suppressing feelings and more about directing them productively toward a constructive outcome.

His advice extends beyond negative emotions like anger. Even disappointment deserves intentional management. Rather than pretending setbacks don’t matter, Schore recommends scheduling a limited “Pity Party”—a defined, brief period to fully experience frustration before moving forward.

“Suppression doesn’t make an emotion disappear,” he said. “It just puts it on hold.”

Giving disappointment a clear beginning and end prevents it from quietly occupying mental bandwidth for days on end. As Schore put it, “Ten honest minutes with an emotion will usually accomplish more than three days of half-feeling it in the background.”

The Power of Presence Over Productivity Systems

Many of the observations from leaders and experts ultimately point toward the same principle: presence. Organizations frequently chase transformation through sweeping initiatives while overlooking subtle changes that disrupt habitual thinking. One company, for example, simply rotated the day of its recurring all-hands meeting. The content remained identical, but attendance immediately became more engaged because employees could no longer operate on autopilot. "The goal is to notice where the autopilot has set in and nudge it sideways," Schore said.

Eliminating the Language of Uncertainty

He also encourages professionals to eliminate unnecessary hedging from everyday language. Statements such as "I'm kind of thinking ..." or "Maybe we could ..." often create additional discussion while unintentionally projecting uncertainty. "It costs more than people think," he said, because tentative language creates "a tax" in both time and authority.

The Counterintuitive Pre-Meeting Ritual

Perhaps Schore's most counterintuitive recommendation comes immediately before high-stakes moments. Instead of squeezing in one final review before an important presentation, board meeting or interview, he suggests doing absolutely nothing for ten minutes. The instinct, he acknowledges, is to prepare harder. But those final frantic minutes often represent anxiety disguised as productivity. "The discomfort usually lasts about 90 seconds," he said. "Then something shifts. You stop rehearsing the future and arrive in it." That observation neatly captures the larger argument running through Schore's work. Productivity is not merely about maximizing activity. It's about minimizing unnecessary mental friction.

Managing Internal Conversations

Leaders often search for another productivity system because calendars are tangible and easy to optimize. Emotions are considerably harder. Yet Schore makes a compelling case that the greatest opportunity for reclaiming time isn't found by reorganizing schedules but by managing the internal conversations that quietly consume them. The elusive "25th hour" may never appear on anyone's clock—but it can emerge when leaders stop spending today's time arguing with yesterday's worries or tomorrow's imagined problems.