Time is a Hot Subject

Since writing an article about time management as a hub a few of my friends have asked to go a little further and expand some time concepts that may be of use to everybody.

For instance why does time pass so slowly when we are young and rush past as we grow older? Are there any people in the world that view time in a different manner to the modern day view? Are there any tricks to create more time to do the things that need to be done each day?

These are all very interesting questions and worthy of our time to look at them and make some conclusions. We can start by looking at people that view time differently to the mainstream: This is information I got from Philippa Bond of Inform Training in Australia.

The Australian Aboriginals do not view time in the past, present and future; to them there is only the now. For instance if you show a photograph of Sydney taken 100 years ago in 1908 to an Aboriginal they will say that it is a picture of Sydney today in 2008. The land is the same and the only difference is that there is now more concrete, houses and buildings. But it is the same place.

They are right too because they are viewing it from the Aboriginal perspective of:

"There is only now."

You and I will look at the old photograph and note the different buildings, roads and houses and make a comment like: "We've come a long way in the past hundred years." We too are right because we have the ability to view time in past, present and future."

Our differing views still remain and it does show that certain cultures differ in the way they view time as a concept.

Now we come to the question about why does time pass so slowly when you're young and speed past as you grow old? This is down to the way we ‘chunk' our time.

A child asks its mother: "When are we going to visit grandad?"

The mother replies: "On Saturday."

The child has no concept of Saturday and asks: "When will Saturday come?"

The mother replies: "After four big sleeps."

Now the child understands because time is chunked in units on big sleeps. Consequently the child has 365 chunks of time each year. That is why a year takes so long to pass when you are young.

When that child starts primary school she/he is introduced to a weekly timetable and soon each chunk of time becomes a week. Now they only have 52 chunks of time to make each year pass so time starts pass faster.

At High School they are introduced to a curriculum of work that must be completed this semester and this causes their chunk of time to be measured by the semester. That is 3 or 4 chunks each year depending upon semester length

Can you see that 3 or 4 chunks of time each year is much fewer than 365 chunks of time?

At work we start scheduling on one year plans, five year plans or ten year plans etc. The higher you climb the management ladder the longer term your focus becomes. Hence it is easy to understand why the gap between your fourth and fifth birthdays took ages to pass but the gap between your forty-fourth and forty-fifth birthdays went past in a flash. It is all to do with how you chunk your time.

How can you benefit from this time phenomena and create more time to do the things you need to do each day. It's pretty obvious; you must take lessons from the neighbourhood four year old and start using smaller chunks of time. Many Lawyers and Accountants bill their time in 6 minute increments - that is ten chunks of time per hour. This system is one of the finest time management systems yet devised and it does help you find the time to do all of the things that need doing each day. But be warned - You have to think in small chunks of time as well as charge in small chunks.

Written by Davmac of http://www.ayecasher.com/

Copyright © JEM Trust 2008.