A Life in-Design blog series
In this blog series, I talk about different actions, events, things, or ideas every day and analyze them a bit and possibly relate a game to it. This is more of an exercise in exploring deeper into emotions and experiences.
The Clock is Ticking…..
As ironic as it is to write this post at 8pm tonight, I usually deal with time management well. Many people could say they don’t manage time well, or they don’t have enough time to do something. I’m going to take a quick look at that mentality and the different solutions facing this conundrum.
The Perception of Time
I think our mentality of being able to use time wisely correlates to our own perception of time. If I’m trying to work on something that has a deadline, I have one eye on the clock and one on what I’m doing. On the other hand, if I’m more “loose” with when my tasks need to be done, I’m not as focused on the time. Time always seems to go by quicker when I’m working on something or having fun. The bottom line is when I’m not focused on the time, it goes by a lot quicker.
I think there’s different levels of focus that you could have on the clock. There’s the casual glance, like to make sure your stomach is in sync of when it’s time for lunch; the rapid glance, like when you’re looking back and forth at the road and your clock because you’re late for work; and the surprised glance, like when you look outside and then at the clock when you realize the day just flew by. Notice in every scenario we are looking perceptively at time. Time itself is something we merely created to make sense of the circular motion of the stars and planets. If we were to just be still, close our eyes, and just sit there, we won’t really know how long we’ve been in that state. It’s like when you’re really tired so you drift off, then jolt back awake thinking you’ve been asleep for a while, only for it to be a minute or so.
Think inability to “feel” time is the constant problem we’re trying to overcome. We could get lost in watching TV, playing games, or scrolling through social media. There may be an inexplicable reason why televisions don’t have a constant clock at the top (could be a setting, I wouldn’t know). These kinds of devices require your time and attention and know that you’ll probably get lost for hours in it.
“No!” you say “I’m not distracted at all. I’m a well-oiled machine of tasks and actions.” Okay, that may be true, I’m not going to judge you. Have you ever thought about how long things take you, however? Just thought, “I’ll make lunch, which is 30 minutes, then go to the store, which will be an hour,” and you’ve completed all the tasks in the exact time you thought of? Obviously, since time is mainly within our own imagination, not all tasks can fit within the time frame that you’ve allotted for it. The real problem comes when we look back at the clock and realize how long we’ve spent doing something. If it’s something you enjoyed, you’ll react in a more positive surprise like “Oh the time just flew by!” If you look at the time however and knew that you should’ve been doing something else, you’re filled with regret, like “Oh, shoot, I need to go do the laundry.” These feelings of regret are what motivate us to take control of time and search for ways to make ourselves more efficient.
Father Time
I’m going to go out on a limb and just say it: Nothing can motivate you other than yourself. Sure, you can buy all the planners, clocks, egg timers that you want, only you can force yourself to use them. In the purpose of using these tools, they are there to keep stimulating yourself with positive emotions as you’re checking things off of your list. They could also be friendly reminders so you’re not late for an important meeting. These time tracking tools CAN be helpful, but they could also work in a negative way. If you’re spending so much time writing down all the things you are going to do on your planner, then you are just wasting time writing things down on your planner. Having a planner could also cause the problem to over plan. Remember how we felt when we were late in completing our tasks? Imagine that feeling multiplied as you realize your tight-knit schedule went uncompleted as a task too way longer than you expected. Every day is a kind of balancing between the tasks we have to complete and how we want to feel at the end of the day when no more tasks can be done.
You got time for a game?
Time stresses people out. It stresses me out. Our inability to mentally sync up with the clock is detrimental to how we want to organize our life. As humans, we are more conscious about time than we think we are, and there are many games that reflect on our desire to control time.
Imagine any kind of race: marathon, triathlon, NASCAR, you name it. The biggest judge on who wins in any of these games is time. In each of these games we are trying to win at time. Yes, we could be racing against others, but we’re merely trying to get a better score, which is denoted by the numbers on a stopwatch. Isn’t it strange how we try to manipulate the very thing we created for ourselves? Perhaps I’ll dive deeper into more invented measurements in the future, but for now it seems I’ve run out of time.
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