Everyone is talking about the lack of time. I’m not completely sure that everyone that talks about it actually are experiencing the lack though. There’s some sort of correlation between you being important and you having a lack of time. And so, I think more people talk about their lack of time than actually having it.
Which might actually give you a real feeling of lack of time because what you keep thinking will eventually become a belief and so if you constantly repeat to yourself that you don’t have time you will soon start to believe it.
And yet, linear time is a concept we’ve just invented and then started treating as law. But time is not time is not time. We’ve all experienced an hour passing by in a second and the same amount of time feeling like a lifetime. Time flies when you’re having fun is a popular saying. It’s my experience that time slows down the more present I am. And you probably get more things done when doing them in presence than when you’re shattered.
About a year ago I labeled my four “times” related to my worklife; sprint, shattered, creative flow and free. Sprint is when I fully focused finish a task in a short amount of time, like a pomodoro. Shattered is when I do a little bit of this and little bit of that, checking social media, chatting to a friend, getting coffee, checking emails… I’m really good at both sprints and shattered time.
What I’m missing is creative flow, when I cancel all distractions and give myself all the right circumstances to go deep on a specific task. I’m also not very good at totally free time as I’m a passionate entrepreneur always being “on” somehow everyday. I’m working on creating more creative flow and free time for myself alongside my sprints and shattered time.
My experience of the different qualities are very different. As is time spent in an intellectual space very different from time spend in my body. Time is not a fixed concept. Not an absolute. It varies. And so, there’s no lack of time, there’s just time. And it’s what we make of it that matters. We have a choice in every moment.
Where are you spending your time? Are you present as it passes?
With all my love,
Helena