It’s May. Goodness. Ang bilis. I can almost hear the groans of frustration, cheers of excitement (for the ‘ber”months? Please, not yet!), gasps of wonder. It’s easy to get overwhelmed by the fast pace of time and the gradual formation of wrinkles on our foreheads.
There’s this lady I’ve been listening to on podcasts- Laura Vanderkam, a writer and “time expert.” (As in her research-backed body of work is on time and how to manipulate it). By “manipulate,” she simply means being able to take control of our time by being more intentional with it. Her method involves tracking your activities and seeing which ones take up more time than necessary (as you deem it should, or not).
Time as a resource, a gift, is not as tangible as say money or other material things. According to Vanderkam, time is associated with memory. When we’re on a vacation, doing something new and exciting, or enjoying ourselves doing something or being with someone (or “doing” someone. Haha), we tend to be fully immersed into every moment, fully relishing every second, which is why time feels like it’s ticking fast and we can’t get enough of the experience. Meanwhile, if we’re doing something so familiar and everyday, or something we may hate, like our day job or having to small-talk with people we don’t seem to align with, time can feel slow and staggering.
I appreciate this insight far more than Eckhart Tolle’s “be in the now,” which I also agree with in some ways but let’s face it, we all can’t be fully in the now because time and space are relative according to Einstein, right? Even though I may be in the Now, my ego may be somewhere in the past, maybe at a time in my childhood when some needs were unmet, etcetera. So I may be here now but my auto-pilot responses to the present moment may not be being Present. And I think that’s OK, because we are human and how we navigate the world is through the “prism of expectations shaped by our past experiences,” said Jason Silva.
Vanderkam notes that the way to “manipulate” time is by creating more meaningful memories around it. Of course as humans we can’t always be happy, that’s never going to happen no matter how many Tony Robbins seminars we attend or how much cannabis we smoke. Life is suffering, that’s how it is. Deal with it.
But I guess what Vanderkam is trying to say is in those mundane moments, create more meaning. Whether it’s as simple as listening to songs we love while stuck in traffic, instead of crappy music on the radio, or creating more pleasant sensory experiences by say making ourselves a cup of tea as we’re ruminating our problems, or truly being “present” with the person we’re having dinner with, or trying something new every day to spice up an otherwise “normal” day, and so on.
And what about time tracking? Her method involves literally writing down every single thing that we spend time on on a day to day basis, but I personally find that a chore. I tried doing this activity and tracked my time for an afternoon but it just didn’t work for me; not only did I forget I was doing it, much of my time was also spent trying to make how I spend my time look good on paper (in short, fool myself).
I don’t really have much of a routine; our life right now can’t be routinary because we’re entrepreneurs, and how we spend our tomorrow is really determined by how today/yesterday went. I am trying to wake up at more or less the same time every day, and stick to a morning routine, because the rest of the day is 95% all over the place. I know I need structure. One thing I rely on (aside from cups of coffee & 10 minute meditations) are to-do lists—I write down priorities for the day (for work, passions, and relationships), then work my day around it. I always assume that there needs to be time for other unexpected things, because yes as the day goes by things happen. I’m still working on my system really. We all have our own way of navigating our daily life, whatever our job or state of life. We have to admit though, we’re all still trying to “perfect” our own time manipulation systems.
Why? Maybe because time will always be this fluid, crazy thing. Memory is equally erratic. One of my most favourite people to have ever lived is Carl Jung, and I resonate with his collective unconscious theory. I believe we all have that deep infinite well of shared experiences from who knows where and who knows when. I know that when I meet people I just share a spark with, whether we know each other or not.
Maybe we really are limited as humans, limited in how we can understand intangible gifts like time and memory. I like it that way. Because maybe we’re supposed to stay in that state of wonder and curiosity, that maybe, we will never really know. We will never fully take control of our time, or form a hundred percent factually-accurate memories, or even move ourselves to be our most present selves every day.
But we can try to, I guess
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