People in the West have never before had such a long life span and so much leisure time yet many complain they do not have enough time to do what they want.
In his latest book, “Time: A User’s Guide,” Stefan Klein, one of Europe’s leading science journalists and writers, attempts to explain this apparent contradiction. He takes us on an exciting journey to explore the hidden dimensions of time and the phenomena which cannot be explained by hours and minutes. The main question is how we experience time and how we can learn to deal with it more carefully.
It is interesting to know that when the Aymara tribe living in the Andes, are asked about the future, they point backward. For them the future cannot be seen and therefore lies behind their backs. By contrast when questioned about the past, they point forward because they have logically already seen the events of the past. This striking example shows that our perception of time depends on our environment but a thorough study of time presents other remarkable facts.
Experiences have proven that even when a human being is held in complete seclusion without any means of seeing the time, he follows a personal rhythm as if a hidden clock regulated all his bodily functions. This biological clock or body clock however, does not measure time in minutes. In an unfamiliar environment we become aware of our body time but in everyday life we are not aware of it. Yet our body time guides us through the day, modulating our blood pressure, digestion and, most of all, our efficiency at different moments in the day.
Our dependence on clocks prevents us from noticing our inner time on our biological clock. “In fact each of our cells contains a mechanism for measuring time and our central clock consists of a pair of ganglia the size of a grain of rice called the suprachiasmatic nuclei, located in each hemisphere of the brain a couple of centimeters behind the bridge of the nose... Our biological clock keeps running even after death. If it is removed from the brain and stored in a nutrient solution, the suprachiasmatic nucleus continues to emit impulses for days,” says Klein.
This concept of body time explains why some of us are morning people why others are night people. One cannot reproach a night person for not being lively in the morning because genes rule our biological clock. However, very often, people do not know at what time they are the most efficient. To find out our strong and weakest hours, we should ask ourselves which activities are easier done in the morning and which in the afternoon. Maybe it’s best to start reading e-mails while we are still groggy and postpone outgoing calls. Each person has to find his own rhythm.
Elasticity is another characteristic of time. When we are happy, time flies and if we are in unpleasant circumstances, time never seems to end. Thanks to our conscious mind, we are able to influence our sense of time. As soon as we realize the value of the moment we are experiencing, we try to enjoy every second of it: “Of all the paradoxes surrounding our experience of time, this one is very intriguing: The very awareness that time is fleeting serves to extend time... But if you train your perception to be more thoroughly aware of the present, you will reap substantial benefits. By giving more life to our time, we give more time to our life.” remarks Klein.
But most of us do not achieve that because we are perpetually running after time. Western culture is based on the view, “Time is money”. Our industrial society is based on workers selling their time for money. The more developed a country is, the faster the pace of life and once people are used to it, it becomes the norm.
To help employees deal with this perpetual shortness of time, companies organize seminars on time management but studies have proved that they do not help in saving time and even job performance does not improve after the training session. Time management courses often bring up multitasking, doing several things at the same time. The truth is that multitasking is one of the best ways to waste time and to make mistakes.
Uncontrolled stress is another way to lose time. Very often, we experience stress because we believe we have no control over our time. Employees at the lowest levels are known to get sick more often than their superiors.
But in Western societies, a lack of time is also seen as a status symbol. The more we have, the more we want, and the lack of time is the price we pay for a plethora of possibilities.
In the epilogue, the author delivers what he promised in the title of the book. He suggests six steps to help us find a new way of dealing with time. The first step is all about controlling the way we use our time; this eases stress. The second step shows us how essential it is to live in harmony with our biological clocks and follow our personal rhythm. The third step teaches us that we cannot be on the go all the time; we need leisure time to achieve balance and modify the pace of life. The fourth step aims at helping us focus on the present and experience the transient beauty of a moment. The fifth step stresses the importance of concentration. Multitasking and distracting thoughts prevent us from finishing our tasks in time and finally we should carefully set a list of priorities. This will help us finish our work more quickly.
We must deal with time in a more serene manner and acknowledge that human beings have different inner times. Time should not be a source of oppression but a tool to help us organize our lives.
After this entertaining and enlightening journey through time, we are left with the positive belief that we have the power to influence our sense of time: “Our awareness of the passage of time is by and large learned behavior, even more so than the mechanisms that control our sense of happiness” concludes Klein.