This article originally appeared in the The Learning Curve in April, 1998, pp. 1, 4, The Networker, April, 1998, 1, 4-5, and The ASTD Reporter, April, 1998, p. 4.
Abstract:
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 clock 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. Instead of focusing just on events in time, on what we're doing, it may serve 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 of time, is the domain of inner time management (ITM).
For people in all but the most routine jobs, learning and consistently using both CTM and ITM methods is both valuable and often necessary in order to continually improve our lives both personally and professionally. For most of us 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.
The Three Types of Time
Physical or evolutionary time
- The occurring of mental and physical events
- Physical time doesn't actually flow, according to most scientists
Clock time
- Measures physical time; useful for measurement and coordination
- Our "sense of time" measures clock time
Psychological or inner time
- Is our "feelings of time passing," including anxiety, pressure, boredom
- Measures how much we're resisting what we're doing
Here's the complete article:
What is time? Most books, trainings, and time management seminars don't define time. But if we don't know exactly what time is, how can we hope to manage it? As an example of the confusion about time, consider a statement we use often in the US: "I don't have time." What does this mean? "I'm completely booked?" Or "I feel overwhelmed?" As another example, Immanuel Kant said time has no real existence outside the human mind-yet the modern business executive is in a constant race with time. What are we talking about?
One face of time is what can be called physical or evolutionary time--the movements and changes of life, or the occurring of physical and mental events. This is the kind of time we refer to when saying "Time and tide wait for no man."
A second face of time is what we call clock time--an arbitrary yet consensual measurement of physical time by various devices such as sundials, clocks, and stopwatches. Clock time is used for coordination (several people getting to a meeting "on time") and measuring the duration of activities such as a one hundred meter dash. We might also call this quantity time.
Different cultures have chosen different physical events as the basis for measurement: e.g., the time it takes to boil rice, one solar year, one lunar month. However, what's important is consensus--if there is agreement, there can be coordination of activities and meaningful comparison of measurements. Countries around the world have agreed to a standard using time zones that divide up the earth's surface starting at Greenwich, England. And many localities have gone farther, setting up standard and daylight savings time.
Is there such a thing as "clock time management?" It depends on what we mean by management. If we mean "ensuring that the measuring of clock time is synchronized, and regular and continuous," then the answer is yes.
What if I took off in a rocket, travelled at speeds close to that of light, then returned to earth? When I got back, according to modern physics the clock I took on my trip would not agree with those that stayed on earth. But clocks are valuable because they can be synchronized and because they usually move at the same constant rate. We don't want clocks to slow down, speed up, or stop. So for competent clock time management we must: change the clocks twice a year for daylight savings time, change our watches when flying or cruising across time zones, reset the VCR clock when electricity goes off, and when returning from near-light-speed flights, reset our watches to local time.
Consider again the question "Is there such a thing as clock time management?" If by "clock time management" we mean "accurately tracking clock time's movement," then here too my answer is yes.
One way of keeping abreast of clock time's movement is to 'read' the clock periodically. We use our ability to "tell time"--for most of us, learning this was our first study of time management. Although this skill may not even be useful in remote areas of Africa, it is necessary to function well in most parts of the world. Another way of tracking clock time's movement is by means of our sense of time, the ability to estimate what clock time is at any moment.
We can also ask what physical time management would be. Wouldn't this be the same as conventional time management (CTM), which focuses on how we organize and 'spend' the time of various events in our lives? The four main tasks in CTM are to determine both long- and short-term goals, break down projects into manageable tasks, determine priorities, and to learn and use a scheduling system. I remember hearing that most people spend more time doing their taxes than considering their life's long-term objectives. In any case, to get what is available during life, it seems necessary to carefully consider our values, priorities, and objectives. Also, these days I think that most people--especially those with urban, white collar jobs--can function efficiently only with some sort of scheduling system.
Is that all there is to time and time management? I hope not, because 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) Time involves the events in the world and the measurement of these events by clocks. But time is also the slow, draggy feeling when we're doing something boring--a 'long time', the anxiety and pressure when we're working against a deadline--a 'hard time', and the effortless flow from moment to moment--an 'easy time'. So we might say that time is also our feelings of time passing. I call this third face of time psychological or inner time. Instead of clock-quantity time, it's quality time.
Rather than CTM's focus on what we want to do, inner time management (ITM) gives methods to optimize the moment-by-moment way we relate to, or the extent to which we are involved in, 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.
Rather than the American-European linear time paradigm--time is an absolute physical reality that flows at an unchangeable speed--on which CTM is usually based, the inner time paradigm is central to ITM. In this paradigm physical time isn't presumed to flow, in accord with modern scientific research. And rather than mirroring some 'external flow', our feelings of time flowing are seen to measure how much we're separate from, or even resisting what we're doing.
Since CTM has not resolved our time pressures, Covey sees the need for a paradigm other than the linear time model that usually accompanies CTM: "The very fact that . . . the fundamental problem remains . . . is a good indication that the basic paradigms are flawed." (p. 28) However, his suggestion of an alternative based on the importance of what we do, rather than the urgency of tasks is not qualitatively different: (1) it still focuses on what tasks we do, and (2) tasks are presumed to occur within an objective flow of time. (p. 13) No matter whether tasks are judged by importance or urgency, and no matter whether determined by means of core principles or not, by keeping the focus on "what you do and why you do it," the underlying paradigm of linear time is left intact.
What range of experience does ITM cover? Besides the examples of boredom, pressure, and flow above, there are many different cultural 'norms' for experiencing time. "In the West . . . time is an outside force helping us to organize our lives. In the East, time springs from the self and is not imposed." (p. 91, Edward Hall, The Dance of Life) Many Zimbabweans strive to stay mindful of their ancestors, which are considered to always be present; most American-European cultures, however, believe that the past is over and done--we should look ahead to the future. The Hopi and Sioux don't even have a word for time. All these differences suggest that temporal perspectives are based primarily on individual and cultural conditioning--which in turn implies that they are changeable.
What is the American-European norm for experiencing time? As mentioned above, linear time is a name for the AE view of time, apparently initiated by Newton some 300 years ago. It portrays time as an absolute physical reality whose flow from past to present to future at an unchangeable speed is independent of consciousness. (Nevertheless, the flow of time is one way of experiencing time, and not a facet of physical time--scientists have never discovered anything like a standard flow of time in nature.) So it doesn't matter what you think, feel, or do, or how you look at time, time doesn't change as a result (contrary to modern relativity theory). As a result, time feels somewhat out of our control, and it seems that we can only adapt to this 'reality'.
Although there are many different cultural 'norms' for inner time, descriptions of peak experiences of all sorts from different cultures and throughout millenia point to a common enlightened quality: timelessness. Ask yourself: What was the experience of time or timelessness in the middle of the best experiences of my life? Abraham Maslow reports in Toward a Psychology of Being that in describing peak experiences people say: "Time did not exist. I wasn't aware of time." Of course, people didn't mean that their activities or the events of physical time stopped; they just weren't aware of a flow of inner time. About two thousand people I polled about peak experiences agreed with Maslow's findings. Krishnamurti, in a book called The Ending of Time, taught that by ending psychological time we would end all conflict!--obviously a very enlightened inner-timeless state.
So no matter what view of time you start with, the 'goal' of ITM is the ending of psychological time. Tarthang Tulku summarizes the journey starting from AE linear time: "Although there seems to be movement and separate places to move to on the first level, and still more open, fluid possibilities of movement on the second level--on the third level there is 'going' and no separate places. It is as though all the friction in the world were removed . . . ." (pp. 161-2, Time, Space, and Knowledge) One of Larry Dossey's patients symbolizes this journey in the imagery of his biofeedback meditation: "I watch the River of Time flow . . . . The river slowly starts to curve so much that it begins to flow back on itself, gradually forming a complete circle. . . . the circular River of Time . . . starts to flood its banks inwardly . . . . and as it continues a giant lake is formed. . . . The surface becomes calm and still . . . ." (p. 20, Space, Time, and Medicine)
If ITM produces peak experiences and peak performance, how come it isn't more widespread? For one thing, ITM teaches new ways of relating to the fundamental temporal fabric of our lives, and practicing these methods takes consistent discipline and--for most of us--a lot of clock time. This is very different from the much simpler matter of learning and practicing CTM, which is a set of skills that "essentially truncates what we do from what we are," (Covey, p. 27) and doesn't "generate any deep or lasting changes in how you view and intereact with time." (Hunt and Hait, p. 149)
A second reason ITM isn't more widespread is that very few people are teaching it. And third, some ITM teachers disparage CTM methods, leading to confusion about the exact relationship and value of CTM and ITM, which in turn makes it difficult to promote ITM. Hunt and Hait wrote: "We organize and set priorities as the system dictates . . . but more often than not we find that the conventional methods of managing our time simply do not work." (The Tao of Time, pp. 9-10) ITM teacher Rechtschaffen says, "The time management taught at business seminars . . . simply turns up the speed on the treadmill of our lives . . . ." (p. 3, Time Shifting)
My work as a psychotherapist, meditation teacher, time management
instructor, and peak performance researcher has shown that for
people in all but the most routine jobs, learning and consistently
using both CTM and ITM methods is both valuable and often necessary
in order to continually improve our lives both personally and
professionally. For most of us 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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