The Time Use Week is the international event for the promotion and exchange of knowledge and success stories about time policies. Researchers, political institutions, companies, social organizations, and citizens from around the world will participate and collaborate, each contributing from their different fields of knowledge and expertise, to achieve improvement in the social organization of time. 

Time policies are key tools available to public administrations and organisations to reduce the inequalities caused by time poverty and to build a healthier, fairer, more efficient, and more sustainable society where the right to time is guaranteed for everyone.

The current organisation of time causes great discomfort among the population, who find it difficult to balance the different times in their lives (paid work time, unpaid work or care time, leisure and participation time, rest time). This negatively affects people’s physical and mental health, productivity, and happiness. Specifically, in Europe, up to 20% of the population suffers from time poverty, and the figure exceeds 50% in some Latin American countries. Artificial Intelligence is on everyone’s lips, and in last year’s edition, we saw how it can be a powerful tool for improving how we use our time. At the same time, it can also accelerate processes that require time and rest, such as deliberation, care, complex tasks, or social relationships, intensifying both the pace of work and everyday life.

Time Use Week 2026, its thirteenth edition, will take place under the framework “The Right to Time and Social Acceleration” and will hold its central events from 19 to 21 October in Barcelona. It aims to reflect on the concept of social acceleration as a growing phenomenon in our society, whereby the exponential increase in the speed of social, technological, and cultural processes in late modernity generates a widespread feeling of lack of time, exhaustion, and alienation.

The combination of technological, social, and cultural changes that occur in increasingly shorter timeframes—and that allow us to do things ever faster—might suggest unprecedented progress. However, we see that people are often unable to keep up with the accelerated pace of society and increasingly experience feelings of lack of time, anxiety, and alienation. This phenomenon increases time poverty and has a direct impact on people’s well-being and health, as well as on business productivity.

Various philosophical and political currents—including Hartmut Rosa’s theory of social acceleration, the slow movement led by Carl Honoré, Byung-Chul Han’s concept of the burnout society, and Kate Raworth’s Doughnut Economics—have examined this phenomenon and propose different ways of addressing it. What they all share is the pursuit of a slower pace of life.

Now, Time Use Week aims to become the international forum for deepening on such debates, merging theory with proposals arising from the right to time and practices showcased by time policies.