Time

Time Management illustrated by AndyArtisand

Have you noticed the peculiarities for time? Of course you have, time flies, time drags, it only seems like yesterday and so on. Those that play video games would have noticed another dimension to time; the virtual dimension. Time passes differently in video games, but it passes differently any way doesn't it?

If you have young children, you will have an all too infuriating awareness of their bumbling perception of time, from learning to read the clock to developing any sense of urgency. You can ask a child to go and put their shoes on now please and their perception of now please encompasses the arrow of time stretching across the morning for the whole of infinity.

Dogs on the other hand, appear to perceive time via routine and symbols; they know that one action most likely follows another and though the timing might be wrong, as long as the order of actions is the correct, the dog understands what time it is. So dinner is cooked, dinner is served and eaten, table is vacated: it’s time for dogs to eat. Boots, hat and coat doesn't necessarily mean time for walk, certainly not if it is preceded by; coffee, shower, mad rush upstairs and usually some shouting about not being able to find: glasses, watch, keys, shoes [delete as applicable]. In fact at this time; the dogs, the child and the husband know that it is time to stay out of the way.

My students have often accused me of being obsessed with schedules, "Good Grief, we are already six minutes into the lesson and we haven’t even discussed the server crash at Dota2’s New Bloom festival." Many years ago I rebelled against time by refusing to wear my watch. Within a week I knew where every clock was; the first was in the newsagents and I could just see it as I passed, then there was a carriage clock in someone’s front room, followed by one of the top of a bank and finally a great big stainless steel looking piece inside River Island which I could see through the window. I was mostly punctual for my job in the jewelers, where there were lots of clocks but they all showed happy time which is about 10.10.

No one else is in my household is bothered about the time. How can they not be bothered when there is so much to do? How can it be possible to do so much in so little time; to paint a hallway in an afternoon, to clean all the downstairs windows before lunch, to make a two course meal in half an hour?  And yet to do five straight forward, uncomplicated and quite familiar tasks such as, let’s say:

1.    Drink a coffee,

2.    Take a shower,

3.    Dress,

4.    Pack a small bag

5.    Leave the house

How can these five things take so long? How can it be that no matter how many times I go through this, nothing goes any faster and if anything the routine appears to be taking longer?

It maybe that I need to reschedule, perhaps develop an entirely new system or even take a time management course, but really I just don’t have the time.