Three Faces of Time

It can be useful to identify three types of time.

Event time--the occurrence of physical and experiential events

Event time is the continual occurrence of physical and experiential events. The word event is used to describe something that happened, or is happening 'now', like getting up in the morning, feeding a pet, a car honking its horn, or noticing that you're hungry. Event time is what we hear and see on the TV and radio news shows.

Measured time--ways of measuring 'event time'

A second face of time is symbolized by the faces of clocks and watches, different tools for measuring 'event time'. We measure length and distance in different ways--by means of rulers, yardsticks, and odometers in cars. And different cultures in the world measure event time in different ways. Most cultures use clocks and watches, and subtract a 'start time' from a 'stop time' to figure out 'how long' something takes. One culture uses the 'length of time' it takes to cook rice as a way to measure 'how long things take'. 'Telling time' is knowing how to measure time in your culture, knowing what measured 'clock time' corresponds to the events that are happening 'now'. Most children's books on time are primarily about how to 'tell time' this way.

The purpose of conventional time management (CTM) is to help us produce more and decrease the anxiety and pressure we feel about time. Since American-European cultures focus on measured time and events in physical time, time management in Western countries has become simply a matter of choosing, organizing, and scheduling events. Although time management seminar graduates have been able to accomplish more as a result of their training, there is growing recognition that they still feel like they don't have enough time, and some feel like things have worsened. As Stephen Covey says, "Concerns about quality of life are just as likely to come from someone with a high level of [conventional] time management training as from someone without it." (p. 31, First Things First) Instead of focusing just on events in time, on what we're doing, it serves us to also explore how things are going--the range of experience from feeling overwhelmed and pressured, to things flowing so well we're not aware of time passing. Exploring how it's going, the quality or feeling of time, is the domain of inner time management (ITM).

Felt time--various experiences and feelings related to time

The third face of time is the one that is probably most important for our happiness, although it's also probably the face that is least understood and most undervalued. Here we will call it felt time, though it might also be called experienced time. Felt time includes all the different ways we feel or experience time. We may feel time move quickly when we're having 'a great time'. During some of the best moments of our lives, things seem timeless, with little or no feeling of time passing. We feel time 'drag' or pass slowly when we're bored, or having 'a bad time'. We feel anxious about time when it seems we don't have enough of it.

Rather than CTM's focus on what we want to do, inner time management gives methods to optimize the moment-by-moment feelings of time, including the way we relate to our current activity. ITM teaches how to increase involvement by moving from (1) holding back from doing something, to (2) resigning ourselves to doing something, to (3) getting into it, to (4) being involved, to (5) being preoccupied, engrossed, or absorbed. By moving toward the absorption of peak performance, we can transform troublesome feelings of time passing--including overwhelm, time pressure, boredom, and anxiety about not having enough time. (For more information on the importance of increasing involvement, see "What Guarantees Optimal Productivity and Well-Being?")

For people in all but the most routine jobs, learning and consistently using both CTM and ITM methods is valuable to improve our lives both personally and professionally. Neither CTM nor ITM by itself resolves our issues with time. But by combining the discipline of planning and organizing what we do with methods of improving the way we do things, there is no limit to our productivity and well-being.

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