Patients and nurses alike claim that they want to spend time together to build relationships that are meaningful. Previous studies have shown that nurses working in psychiatric inpatient care spend less time than desired with patients and there is a need to further investigate the nature of psychiatric and mental health inpatient nursing. This study aimed to explore how nurses in psychiatric inpatient wards spend their time, how activities are distributed over time and with a time-geographic perspective show how these two variables relate to places. In total, 8 structured observations for a total of 30 hours and 47 minutes were carried out. The time and motion capture tool TimeCaT was used to register place, activity, and time, and descriptive statistical analysis was performed. The STROBE checklist for observational research was used. The observations resulted in a constructed time-geographic chart that visually mapped the nurses’ path from 7 am until 9 pm. This chart showed that nurses spend little time in places where the patients are. There was also an overlap where there was a larger staff working but where the staff room and medicine room were still the most common places nurses occupy. There might be capacity, authority and coupling constraints that lead to a path that is problematic if psychiatric and mental health nursing is aiming for person-centred care. Nurses who work in psychiatric inpatient care need to evaluate how and where their time is spent, and organizations need to prioritize interventions that facilitate the nurse-patient relationship.