This seminar presents principles and quite a few methods that
can be useful for mastering time. This is an inner time management
(ITM) workshop. It focuses on optimizing felt time, the
way we actually experience and feel time, rather than on what
to do with our clock time. For people in all but the most routine
jobs, learning and consistently using both CTM and ITM methods
is necessary to optimize 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.
Note: it is very important to do the exercises presented
in this seminar. If you don't, it will probably take much, much
longer to get the necessary insights and make the required changes
in habitual ways of seeing and experiencing time.
Contents
What is time?
First, we'll ask a very important question that is typically
not seriously addressed in CTM workshops: What is time?
How can we master time without some idea about what it is?
What is the 'normal' way of experiencing time in the West?
After coming up with some working definitions of time,
we'll attempt to describe the 'normal' way of experiencing and
perceiving time in Western countries, including the USA and northern
Europe.
The time calling exercise
This is a simple exercise that can help you clearly identify
linear time, the Western sense that time is flowing linearly
and unstoppably among past, present, and future.
What is the optimal way of relating to time?
We'll explore how time is experienced during peak experiences,
those 'best' times in our lives, no matter how short or infrequent
they might be. What was your experience of time during different
peak experiences?
Watching the Clock
This exercise provides an environment so that you easily
see variations in 'felt time'--the changing feelings we have
with, within, and about time. It may also clarify the differences
between measured, or clock time, and felt time.
Levels of mastery of time stress
There's a wide range of possible ways of relating to time--many
different levels of mastery of time, and time stress. Here are
six levels that I have identified. This may help clarify what
is possible for us.
What inhibits peak time experience?
Another very important question is "What keeps us from
having peak time experiences all the time?" Or, looking
at the same restriction from a different angle, "What gives
rise to our ordinary experience of time?"
Procrastination--Unwitting Creativity
We'll take a look at several examples of how our feeling
of time passing is created and strengthened. First, we'll examine
the process of procrastination, and see how it's not simply a
matter of rescheduling something to a later time.
Turning Procrastination Around
We can take the characteristic orientation of procrastination,
where we look from the present toward the future, and reverse
it--look from the future back towards the present and past. Perhaps
the underlying restrictive structure of linear time will open
up.
Three Energy Centers
The process of creating/relieving the sense of time flow
can be expressed in terms of three energy centers at the head,
throat, and heart. We can work with these centers to restore
balance and build our energy.
Balance Your Breathing
Time pressure always seems to be directly related to an imbalanced
way of breathing. The most important technique that I have found
to correct the imbalance associated with time stress is to breathe
easily, gently, and smoothly through both nose and mouth.
Is 'Negative' Feeling Really Negative?
Do negative feelings always have to be painful, or is there
some other way to relate to them?
Seeing Through Negativity
Here's an exercise to see whether there is some way of focusing
so that 'normally' heavy sensation doesn't bother you.
What Causes Time Pressure?
We can profitably inquire into the source of time pressure.
What do you think causes the pressure?
Pressure Is Related to Involvement
The pressure we feel is directly proportional to how much
we're resisting what we're trying to get done. If we're totally
involved in what's at hand, there's no pressure.
Exercise: Identifying Situational Feelings
Various situational feelings that we don't want to feel--like
fear, guilt, sadness, confusion, or embarassment--can add energy
to a work situation, intensifying the 'normal' and often somewhat
constant pressure of time flowing.
Exercise: Embodying A Conflict
There are often conflicting feelings associated with the
tasks you want to accomplish. We can do a physical exercise to
bring the conflict to center stage, resolve it, and relieve our
physical and emotional tension.
What's the Source of Time Pressure?
Statements from different sources can be helpful in further
understanding where time pressure comes from.
Exercise: Looking Forward to Something
Pressure and anxiety occur because over years we have developed
a habitual way of looking at the future: we occupy a point in
time we call 'the present', and we look from this point to a
somewhat distant segment of time called 'the future'. We can
loosen up this habitual 'pressure perspective' by consciously
adopting the perspective again and again.
How Do You Measure Progress?
One way is to periodically consider two questions: "Am
I doing the right thing?" and "Am I doing things right?"
Another way of stating the first question was provided by time
management guru Alan Lakein: "What is the best use of my
time right now?" Another way of stating the second question
is provided by Steve Randall: "Am I timelessly involved
in what I'm doing?"
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