Zeit haben/nehmen zu oder für?

Question

So I am having some problems trying to understand when to use für and zu while talking about having time

I have checked in https://www.linguee.de but I see lot of different sentences.

So far, correct me in case I am wrong:

• I have no time for something

  Ich habe keine Zeit für etwas
  Ich habe keine Zeit dafür

• I have no time to do something

  Ich habe keine Zeit, etwas zu machen
  Ich habe keine Zeit dazu

• I take some time for something/to do something

  Ich nehme mir Zeit für etwas
  Ich nehme mir Zeit etwas zu machen

I am living in Germany so I asked a couple of germans how they use it and all of them said, they "never" use »Ich habe keine Zeit dazu« and always use »dafür«.

Could anyone explain me this scenarios?

Answer 1

As rule of thumb you can say: You use zu if a (unconjugated) verb is following and you use für if a substantive is following.

In the context of having time you are right: Using dafür is common (and sounds "good") while dazu is not common (but unfortunately i can not explain why.)