I have time issues. I’m not alone, either. No, I’m not talking about the ability to manage the available time I have. I’m talking about my sense of time and dealing with a lightening-speed virtual world and a much more sedate “real life” environment.
If you’ve ever:
- Grown impatient that someone hasn’t answered your email in less than 5 hours
- Have to think twice about what day it is
- Look up from your keyboard only to realize two hours passed by…
…then you have time issues, too.
The sense of time is skewed in the virtual world. One day feels like two weeks. 10 minutes feels like an hour. Faster, faster, faster… and your brain just can’t cope.
So your brain blinks out. Sometimes it burns out completely. Day turns into night before you know it. Night becomes day. You sleep at odd hours. A week passes and you realize that you have no idea where that week went. People gape at you when you ask them what day it is. The 20th? The 24th? You have no clue.
A skewed sense of time can be a problem, too. Your tolerance levels lower and you grow impatient more quickly. Waiting becomes a struggle, and you probably feel like you should be doing something instead of sitting there. You might be late for appointments, because you hyper-focused and lost track of time. You might nag at someone to complete a task or to make a payment only to realize that only a day has passed.
What’s the solution? Slow the hell down, people.
It’s important to maintain the realistic sense of time passing, easily ignored when you’re in The Zone and moving at high speed. A skewed sense of time creates a sense of anxiety, confusion and stress. It’s no wonder that people burn out these days faster than rubber tires peeling out on an empty street.
What’s the rush?
Ask yourself what the rush is all about. Do you feel like you might miss that chance of a lifetime? Have to answer that email right now? Racing to be the first commentator? Relax. Life isn’t all about some wires and an LCD monitor. You might even find that asking yourself what the rush is and taking a good hard look at the answer helps you re-prioritize what matters in life. It isn’t winning some virtual race against the clock.
Force yourself to take a break
Living in high gear is more habit than anything. We teach ourselves to move faster and unconsciously reinforce that pattern of behavior by pushing to do more in less time. Break the addiction to speed. Each time you have to do something, force yourself to take a break. Walk around the house three times. Turn on the TV for a few minutes. Pick up a book. Teach your mind that minutes are to be savored and appreciated, not jammed full of activity.
Look ahead at your future
Picture yourself sitting on that big porch at 80 years old, watching the sun go down. Imagine rocking gently back and forth, at peace with the world. Your life’s almost over. You’re looking back on your past and thinking over everything you’ve accomplished. Will you be proud to say to yourself, “I never did get to reach my dream of (insert personal goal here) but I sure as hell was fast… Hey, what day are we?”
It’s a real cliché, but life is passing us by, and faster than ever. Slow down. Appreciate what you have, and remember what you wanted to be in life. Put the mouse down for a minute – the sky won’t fall in, lightening won’t strike you dead, and the universe won’t collapse.
Now go breathe for a minute. Take the time to live.
How true! I just spent last evening (well, 15mins anyway) putting a cute bit of code on my EEE pc which every 15 minutes pops up and asks me “What are you doing?”. My answer is put into a text file which I can then review whenever I want. Errr, last nite, I did very little. At all. Looking back at that text file. I wish I was brave enough to publish it, but I’m not!
I put a similar time logging app on my PCs and Mac. Suddenly, I understand why the supper has been getting burnt! Isn’t an hour/day/evening short when you are surfing and chatting with folks in the blogosphere, or elsewhere?
I think I will learn to be less impatient now though.
I’ve just spent 6 months offline. Not in some 3rd world country (well, define that how you wish), but in UK. I couldn’t get broadband or dial up, so incursions onto the Net via mobile were restricted after the first few £ heavy bills came in. Now I’m back online, I can feel myself wishing time away again. “It should happen now”. And when it doesn’t, at least I know I should remember that my garden, and other things await my attention.
Like the supper….which just for once, I didn’t cremate, but only because I used a good old fashioned egg timer with an alarm on it. And left all the tabs open on Firefox and prayed there wasn’t yet another power cut whilst we ate…..I’m getting fed up with ‘restore session’!
And I’m not trying to spam, but is this book cover really, really pink? I need another opinion, pls.
If you’re talking about the Write for the Web book, then no, it’s really, really not pink. It’s white with pale turquoise blue accents.
I thought I had bad monitor coloring! (I can’t see grey. Grey is white.)
On a side note, let us know how you found our blog, Lins. I’m glad to have you (and welcome!) but I’m very curious considering that we’re only launching the site on Monday and haven’t publicized the URL here
A beautiful reminder. As I sit listening to the ticedy-tock of my cheap Swiss watch, it’s nice to pretend that the time isn’t draining away as fast as it feels!
“Grown impatient that someone hasn’t answered your email in less than 5 hours”
5 hours? 5 hours. Sometimes I make people wait days. It makes them feel they’ve earned it.
Nick Cernis | Put Things Off’s last blog post..Shock! Horror! Are You Using The F Word Around Your Clients?
@ Nick – DAYS?? Do you have any idea of the effect that has on a person like me? I can hold off for… oh, maybe 10 hours. Beyond that, I’m like, “Okay. This person has ditched me. Forever.”
So you’re the one slowing down the internet with the constant “click, click, click” of your inbox refresh button. A kind of modern spin on Chinese water torture?
“Click, click, click.”
I can hear it from here!
(I apologise for subverting what was otherwise a thoroughly sensible discussion on a well-written article.)
(Flattery gets you everywhere)
Apologize? Never apologize for hijacking a thread and having fun.
And… yes. Dammit. I do that. Only my habit looks more like this:
“Why isn’t any email coming in? It must be broken. Dammit. Bet the server is down. Harry, is the server down? No? Oh. Well, something’s wrong with my email. I haven’t gotten any in the last 30 seconds. It’s broken. Can we call the shop? Do I have enough RAM? What’s wrong with this computer? Oh. Must be Gmail. Gmail’s down. Is your Gmail down, Harry? No? Well, mine is. It’s because I live in Canada, I know it. You Americans get all the good stuff…”
@Nick: Subvert away, my friend.
@James: I give people at least 24 hours.
I get all my free plugins from the UK. Since it is night here when it is morning there, I should get free tech support before I go to bed, right?
Or something like that.
The internet was custom made for guys like me … ADD + Bi-Polar. Hyper focus for 20 hours on one thing, then switch to 30 things in 7 minutes and absorb them all. Then crash for 10-12 hours and off to the races again with an IV drip of caffeine.
BTW thanks for the commentluv. I use it, too.
Bill in Detroit´s last blog post…The Other Night, Dear