I think we can all agree that, when the machines rise against us, the insurgency will be led not by our military drones or our automobiles, but by our alarm clocks. Theirs is a mundane, thankless job that frequently requires being poked, smacked, sworn at, and violently hurled into an adjacent room. To be honest, I can’t guarantee they haven’t already begun implementing the preliminary phases of their insidious plan. For example, I have suspected for some time now that my little Timex Dreamkiller has been deducting whole minutes from my day as punishment for my morning misconduct. If I catch it in the act, Timex will start getting mysterious envelopes with no return address containing mangled bits of circuit board and letters composed with words cut out of magazines.
The point I’m so laboriously trying to get to, is that many of us feel like there simply aren’t enough hours in the day. We go about our daily lives, maintaining routines that were once developed to suit our needs but that may or may not be doing us any favors. Old habits are hard to break and new ones take three weeks or more to create. We end up doing certain things, not because they benefit our lives, but because we’ve always done them. For example, when I took my hiatus from Facebook, I repeatedly had to stop myself from navigating to it the first few days, not because I missed checking on it, but because it was my go-to internet distraction. Since returning, I’ve begun to think checking in once a week to catch up would be sufficient to remind me just what a failure I am.
I refused to invest time in having my Sim learn to cook, and now I can’t even get her off the toilet. Show off.
Here is an interesting article from Learnvest which attempts to lay bare our arguments about time constraints. The truth is, there are 168 hours in each week. Now, let’s argue (laughably) that we all get the recommended minimum 8 hours of sleep a night. That leaves 112 waking hours. The question one must ask, now, is how much of that time is allocated to “watching stupid shit on TV” and “dickin’ around on the internet?” You don’t know, do you? No one does, unless they stop doing one or both of those things for a while. As Laura Vanderkam, author of 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think, points out in the article, the problem has less to do with how busy we are than with how little we know about our own habits.
Take me, for example. Out of 112 waking hours, 40 are generally spent working. Now, I’ve recently been working Sundays to wrap things up at my company before I leave Alaska in March, but for now we’ll assume a regular 40 hour schedule with 5 weekly hours of commute time. In totaling up my non work-essential duties (5 hours showering/primping, 5 hours cleaning house, 10 hours fixing all my own meals, 7 hours walking the dog) I arrive at 27 hours. Combined with my work hours, I get a total of 72 hours a week. That leaves 40 hours, a full work-week, free. Forty hours for which I cannot account and constantly bitch about the fact. It’s more than a little humbling to realize I’ve made “mildly sentient rutabaga” a full-time job.
Speaking of more time in your day, you’ll never sleep again after seeing this. You’re welcome.
Granted, we all need some time to unwind, but 40 hours? More to the point, are the methods we use to unwind really making us any happier? I know my mood improved drastically during the three-or-so weeks I abstained from Facebook. This, in spite of the fact that I was insanely busy during that time. The truth is, not only do most of our distractions add little to our lives, we compulsively and subconsciously feel guilty for not doing something valuable with all that time. I’m not saying all television and web entertainment is evil, just that we should maybe concentrate on that handful of shows or “time-killing” sites that bring us the greatest pleasure instead of feeling obligated to see every show and click on every link our friends recommend.
Now, some people are legitimately busy. I won’t even pretend to know what it’s like to be a working parent, never mind a single working parent. Still, chances are each person still carries some old habits that have become redundant. Things that served a purpose once upon a time, but now could save minutes or even hours of time if they were done away with. So, my fellow overworked, underpaid office drones, be upfront with yourselves. How much time do you spend giggling at Grumpy Cat, writing obligatory birthday wishes on Facebook, or watching the latest familial train-wreck on TLC? How much is it really contributing to your life? Do you feel better, afterword? Do you feel worse? Or do you just feel inert and a little brain-dead? No, seriously, I’ve got fifty bucks riding on your answer.
Gently Used Foliage 