Working in a State of Time Scarcity: Daily Time Poverty and its Behavioral Consequences

The escalating volatility and fragmented nature of modern work have made daily time poverty an increasingly pervasive threat to organizational effectiveness. While the toll of chronic scarcity is well-documented, we lack a precise understanding of how these daily temporal deficits dynamically impair task execution and who can effectively buffer such strains. Drawing on scarcity theory, we propose that daily time poverty heightens cognitive weariness, which in turn fosters procrastination and shortcut-taking at work. We also examine the moderating role of two work planning styles, namely, time management planning (TMP) and contingency planning (CP). Across two daily diary studies with independent samples, multilevel path analyses supported our model. Results from Study 1 (N between = 143, N within = 1259) indicated that daily time poverty predicted higher cognitive weariness, which heightened subsequent shortcut behavior and procrastination. Study 2 (N between = 210, N within = 998) replicated these findings and further revealed cross-level moderation, such that TMP strengthened but CP weakened the link between time poverty and cognitive weariness. Finally, theoretical and practical implications are discussed.