Time: As a matter of urgency… By Jane McNeice

“I can’t believe we are in May already!”

I have heard myself say the same phrase each and every month since January. I’ve heard others iterate it too. Yet it is not the case that each week, month, or year has less time in it, so why the feeling that time is slipping away so quickly?

I think many of us relate to the sense that time was slower when we were children, and as each year passes, it gets faster. I can vividly recall the year of 1981 when I was six years old, and we had the six weeks school summer holidays that went on for an eternity. Then each one after that, seemingly that little bit shorter. Nowadays my children finish school late July and I blink, and it is September! One explanation could be the increased sense of our own limited existence as we start to get older, but I am quite sure there is another significant reason…

Since the 1980s we have become much more ‘busy’, busier because progression into adulthood brings with it changes and often more things to do e.g. responsibilities, caring for others in some cases, but also busier because of the pace at which the world now operates. The world we have engineered is fast. We can receive information, communicate, respond, take decisions, and act in a very short space of time. Time hasn’t changed, there are still 168 hours in a week, but what we are doing with that time has changed, dramatically. The pace at which are doing things is almost putting us out of sync with time. We are operating faster than it, leaving us rarely in the moment to experience the stand still pleasure of the past.

Time is objective, though our experience of it is not. Our perception is very subjective, and it is this which has changed, not time itself. I fully recognise time as the most precious commodity I and others have, and with this, the uncomfortable knowing of its finity. It is running out for us all.

We cannot change time, so we can only change our perception of time. If ‘busy’ is what is contributing to the sense of it passing too quickly, then we need to address ‘busy’ as a matter of urgency. Oh, the irony! So how can we address ‘busy’, slow down the pace, and resyncronise ourselves with time…

• Evaluate your 168 and ensure your are using it on what is most precious to you.
• Write a letter instead of a text or email.
• Not responding to all emails in a nanosecond. Slow the whole process of ‘respond, receive, respond’ down!
• Stopping and taking pleasure in the moment.
• Step away from the technology and feel the real world. Feel time.
• Building time into our diaries for ‘nothingness’ or ‘do nothing’ time (and not avoiding doing so because we tell ourselves it is ridiculous that it has come to this!).
• Allow yourself to get and be bored. It’s amazing how slow time is when you are bored!
• Organise and prioritise and pass on some of the ‘busy’ to others, rather than feeling it must be done by you. Don’t become a martyr to busy or the glorification of ‘busy’.
• Consider whether wasted time can be recycled into something enjoyable e.g. an audiobook while commuting.
• Stop! Just stop what it is you are doing, do nothing (unless you are a surgeon, or a pilot, or are doing something that your own or others lives temporarily depend upon!). Remind ourselves that we are in control and have the power to choose. Choose your actions, and therefore your time wisely.

My intention for the next hour is to do just that. Right here, right now, stop. I am giving myself permission to be ‘off’.