Time

With the help of the Timeshifter app, my internal clock has mostly adjusted to being back home. At first, I’d wake up in the middle of the night starving and just wanting to have breakfast. I’d also get very sleepy in the afternoon and work painstakingly hard not to fall asleep in the early evening.

And now that I am no longer on vacation, I am finding that time has been passing so much quicker for me. It’s wild to think that just last week, I was spending an afternoon just marvelling at this grand presidential palace in Abu Dhabi or tracing the flowers on the walls of the grand mosque with my fingers. 

Qasr Al Watan

Inside the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque

Time is a funny thing. I was listening to a really good podcast episode about this concept.

In the episode, Cassie Mogilner Holmes shared a few studies and insights on time that felt really aligned with some of my recent thinking around better prioritizing and carrying out a more intentional life: 

1. In one study of university students, each of the students in a control group was asked to just write about their day while the other group was asked to write about how busy they are. After the exercise, the student would pass a person who was needing help (this person was planted in the study). It was found that the group that had simply thought about their busy-ness was less likely to help the person in need.

2. Yes, damn: we always agree to doing things in the future. But when we finally get to that task, we realize that we don’t actually have the time to do it (damn!). It’s much easier to commit our future selves to something than it is to say no to someone. 

   • A better way to assess a request is to ask ourselves “if time was not a constraint here, would I agree to doing this? Would I be happy doing this?”

3. In another study, folks were told ahead of a weekend to treat it like a vacation while the other group was told to treat it like any other weekend. Those who had a “vacation weekend” ended up reporting higher levels of satisfaction and joy from their weekend - they stayed in bed with their partner longer, ate dinner at the table, did less chores, etc. 

4. Because of hedonic adaptation, we quickly adapt to all the good things that we have in our life and are less likely to notice the joys in our life. It is important to take some time to smell the flowers or be a tourist in our own city sometimes. (side note: I am going to try really, really hard to keep up my tourist lifestyle)

The Correct Time exhibit at the Design Museum of Chicago