work on having a healthier attitude to time

Being nearly unemployed and not needing to look for a job is really changing the way I think about time. Wow. I love this.

One thing I don’t understand is how people get bored. I wrote, and checked e-mail and interacted with people at a coffee house from about 8:30-1:30 yesterday. And I could have stayed longer. I did some other chores. I made beef stew for supper. I still could have done another three or four things by the time it was time to go to bed.

There’s so much to be interested in!

Okay, I might not be able to phrase it well, but I know what I mean!

• Is what I’m doing right now furthering one of my priorities, or scoring something off of one of my ‘lists’?
• At the end of a day, am I happy with what I’ve accomplished?
• When I rest, is it because I need to?
• Do I have the balance between looking ahead, planning; and living in the moment?
• If something’s important to me, if I want to attain it, I have to give it time.
• A journey of a thousand miles begins with one step – and it ends after another 999 steps!
• As long as I’m doing something, things are getting done!

I’m getting very close to ticking this one off, ‘cos I really do feel like I ‘get’ it – perhaps as soon as I come up with a better-phrased ‘maintenance’ (and/or a goal to learn how to spell maintenance!) goal I’ll consider this done :)

Incidently, great quote from Abs yesterday (thanks!): “If not now, when; if not you, who?”

How to phrase how I feel about this? I guess it’s about productivity, how I use what time I have. There’s a whole jumbledness of long and short term projects, rest and activity, needs and wants.

Simply put: things don’t get done unless you do them!

Yesterday was a non-productive day. Oh, I made soup and scored three videos off the list, but there was minimal study, no gym or cinema visits, and no reviews written or xmas cards made. All things I had listed as ‘want to do’s for the weekend. And of course, if I didn’t do them yesterday that leaves a whole pile of stuff for today! In times past, that would have paralysed me: one for feeling like such a lazy, lazy cow over yesterday, and two just the ‘argh!’ of trying to squeeze so much in to today.

But… I’m slowly changing that. There were several times yesterday I could have done one of my listy things, but didn’t. I curled up with my book. I slobbed out with pc on knee. I knew what I was doing! Thing is, I just didn’t feel like being productive – and sometimes that does win out. As long as that’s not always, I’m trying to be calm with the idea that it’s okay: part of me needed the rest (aches and pains from the gym, brain from striving!) and it serves as a reminder that a day ‘unused’ does leave me with this vague sense of dissatisfaction. Which kicks in the motivation I need to get on with things!

As to the long list for today, well – I can but see how it goes. There’s a balance between prioritisation (this needs to be done), and what I feel like doing – yes, I’m learning to go with ‘feel like’ being a valid expression!

Today nothing seems urgent; just, probably should versus doesn’t matter whether I do/don’t. So really, as long as I’m doing something, it’s all good. And rest is always something!

it will likely be a madhouse at work. That’s when I’m really going to have to set up some boundaries and figure out how to make time work for me. I might start taking the train again. And work from home at least one day a week. And still write.

I suspect I’ll have to revisit this again and again, building on what I learned before to create improved understanding. But, here’s what I’ve got for now.

Time and gratitude. My thinking about time and gratitude intersected in an improved ability to be aware of the present. I find it difficult to respond to the admonition “Be present.” I found it relatively easy to increase my awareness of things around me that I’m grateful for—and the end result is that I am more present.

Time and happiness. My readings about time and happiness have been intersecting on this point “it’s the journey that matters, not the destination.”

• I don’t have enough time
• I have plenty of time

But the second statement leads to relaxation, patience, and happiness, while the first leads to anxiety, tension, and unhappiness.

When I’m in the midst of a time crisis I can’t quite believe the mantra, “I have plenty of time.” I can sometimes believe the mantra from T. Alexander Anderson’s book The Gift of Time: I have all the time I need to do whatever I choose. When neither of those works, this does: I put the statement “It takes time to…” in front of whatever I’m attempting to accomplish. A lot of my problem with time seems to be an expectation that things in the physical world should happen as fast as thought, so it’s helpful to remind myself that it just doesn’t work that way.

Organizing time. A new organizational system unexpectedly popped out of this and some other reading. I’ve gone back to something that has worked for me before—planning based on the phases of the moon and the seasons and half seasons. I feel like I’m connecting with ancestral rhythms and engaging in a partial rejection of the artificiality of clock and calendar time. I’ve also made the system visual (mind maps and color-coded lists) and ephemeral (on paper, the back of used computer paper at that), emphasizing the reassurance that I can redraw and replan any time I like and don’t need to be thrown for a loop by unplanned occurences.

So, I’m going to call this goal done, with a humble recognition that it’s an area that responds to gradual improvement that I will want to continue.

From Unwinding the Clock: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time by Bodil Jonsson

In this chapter, she argues that most of us would benefit from redistributing our schedules so that we have undivided time for some of our projects. Scheduling all appointments for Thursday, for example, so that Friday can be a day to tackle one big project, particularly one that requires a lot of thought because thinking is done best in undivided time (she deplores that school children are expected to think in an environment filled with strictly divided time).

She also points out that there are some situations where dividing up time more precisely is exactly what is needed—when more structure is required.

I loved the illustrative example in this chapter because I didn’t understand it. This book is translated from Swedish. When she asked us to work on redistributing the time in our schedules, she referred to an 18th century redistribtion of land in Sweden. “Picture a map of the Swedish countryside before and after the land redistribution.” (p. 51) I’ll bet that’s simple enough that any Swedish school child can do it—but not me! But, she explained it enough that I got the point. “For the most part, the change didn’t mean that people ended up with more or fewer acres, it meant greater value, because the fields were joined to make larger units.”

From Unwinding the Clock: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time by Bodil Jonsson

Chapter 3 is called Setup Time. This is the time of thinking and preparation that goes before any task can be completed—setting up the machines in the factory in the morning, prepping the ingredients before cooking. Setup Time for a difficult task can often seem unproductive. So, procrastination may have less to do with putting off the task than putting off the setup time. I’ll find myself doing less important tasks that have an easier and shorter setup time while putting off important tasks where the Setup Time is likely to be confusing and long.

If you just persevere during the setup time, the rewards for performance can be significantly greater for one big task than for many small ones. But it takes a strong sense of awareness to prioritize and then make it through the setup time required for a difficult task. p. 36

From Unwinding the Clock: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time by Bodil Jonsson

In Chapter 2, Jonsson distinguishes between clock time and experienced, or personal, time.

We human beings aren’t very good at registering objective clock time. Our built-in clocks run differently from day to day, from hour to hour, maybe even from minute to minute. In other words, they’re not too reliable. p. 22

The thing that clock time is good at is managing inter-human interactions—how else would we be able to meet someone at a particular time or know when the next episode of America’s Test Kitchen will be on?

Experienced or personal time is the most important kind for the individual. Some environments are more conducive than others in terms of permitting the experience of personal time, of your own rhythm. p. 27

The first step in gaining more experienced time “is that you have to start making experienced time into a conscious notion inside yourself. Realize that the clock doesn’t tell you everything—that it’s not the one and only means of measuring time.” p. 31

From Unwinding the Clock: Ten Thoughts on Our Relationship to Time by Bodil Jonsson

In the first chapter, she makes the argument that time is really all we have. We can exchange time for money, for relationships, for spirituality and other things. But we can’t, for example, buy relationships with money or vice versa. “Time is the true capital.” p.4

The fact that “time is the only thing you have” can be experienced as a joy, an eye-opener, an exhortation or a challenge, all depending on your mood. p. 19

From The Gift of Time: Making the Most of Your Time and Your Life by T. Alexander Anderson

What is the first thing you think about when you wake up in the morning? Does this set the tone for your whole day? How do you think your life would change if you woke up apreciating each day and asking yourself, “What can I do to make the most of this day?” p. 119

At the end of each day, ask yourself and anser the following question: “What have I learned today?” Share your answer with people you care about and ask them what they learned. p. 123