Lessons in Time

Back in elementary school they passed out these little paper disks with numbers all the way around them 1 - 12.

The teacher would then instruct that you punch out two hands, one short and one long, and fasten them to the center of the disk.

"Now class," she would announce, "we're going to learn how to tell time."

That was the easy part.

As you grow beyond your elementary school years you find ways to cut corners when it comes to telling the time. You buy yourself a handy digital clock, and make sure it's one of those fancy kind that syncs itself with the master universal clock so you always have it set to the correct time. You set alarms on your PDA or your cell phone so that not only do you always know what time it is, but you always know when you're supposed to do something important.

We manipulate time twice every year with daylight savings time, and trick ourselves into waking up early by setting the alarm clock by our nightstands 30 minutes fast (unless you have one of those universal sync clocks...and then you're just screwed.)

We are masters of telling time, so why the hell is it so hard to learn how to MANAGE it?

I spent the entire weekend looking at the clock on my computer only to find that entire hours had disappeared. "Where is the time going?" I wrote in my high grade artificial black leather bound journal. I had no clue, only that one moment it was still morning, then in a flash it was time to make dinner, an instant past that it was time to go to bed.

When we lose track of time, we often lose track of the things we had intended to get done.

"Ahh crap, I ran out of time," becomes our patent excuse for all of the things we didn't get finished.

The real truth is that we didn't actually run out of time, we just didn't use the time we had properly. So then how do we learn to make better use of the 24 hours in each day that we are given?

Well, if you're particularly anal then you would follow the teachings of Franklin Covey and buy yourself some over-priced planner that forces you to write down your comings and goings in 15 minute intervals.

If you're not quite to that level of rectal retention then you'll get yourself some fancy personal organizer that allows you to track your most important appointments or meetings with a tiny plastic pencil and then sync it up with the software on your computer so it will send you emails to remind you of the reminder that you'll be receiving when the alarm on your PDA goes off.

If you're one of those people who insists that they have their entire schedule "in their head" then you'll find yourself constantly running late to every place you're expected to be, and going to bed completely exhausted because you spent the day running your ass in circles only to remember the 5 things you wanted to get done but didn't. At which point you'll say "Ahh crap, I ran out of time," right before you drift off into a restless sleep.

Ahh time.
That pesky reminder of all the things we didn't do.
That troublesome foe that gauges how old we are from one passing year to the next.
That unstoppable force that marches forward at regular 60 second intervals for every minute in 60 minute intervals for every hour for every 24 hours of each day for each 365 days of each year of our lives.

As much as we may try to manipulate it and manage it and organize it; it will forever be the one thing which we have no real control.

I could go on and on....
But it seems that for tonight, I've simply run out of time.