What does it really take to build a Rome?

Rome wasn’t built in a day. How often have you been given that little bit of wisdom? You probably think you know what it means. It seems self-evident. Several years ago, Karen and I went to Rome and while we were there, we advised ourselves to “just do like the Romans do.” One day over dinner, Karen said to me “Well, just what do or did the Romans do?” I honestly could not say. I only know they do not drive like we do. In addition, while I thought I knew what it meant when we say “Rome was not built in a day”, I also could not tell you how long it took to build Rome. In fact, if it were like any other city, they were probably still building it when it “fell.” Many works are never finished; they are simply “works in process.” Thus, Rome was probably not ever really built since it was never finished. Cities and countries are always works in progress.

The same holds true for people. We are not built in a day or even a lifetime. We are never finished as people until we die and even then we will not be finished. I think of the growth I want in my life and I realize that after having worked on patience for at least the last three years, it will certainly not be obtained in a day or probably even in my lifetime. Many of my friends also doubt it will be obtained in my lifetime. More likely, if I keep trying hard and working at it, I may find myself getting more and more patient, but never reaching the apex I would like to achieve. The best I may be able to do is to be more patient than I was yesterday and the day before that. My creating a patient persona is a work in progress. I will definitely not become patient in a day and maybe not even in a lifetime.

The real goal is not to finish but to make progress with your life. When we work a little each day on something, we eventually create our own individual Rome. Do you get bored easily or give up easily on things? Are you working on long-term goals and sometimes getting frustrated over your rate of change? What could you use as a more realistic measure of change to gage your progress? Who could help you to stay on track? Can you find a mentor or coach or friend who will provide you with encouragement? It is difficult to build Rome by yourself.

Do you have time?

“Do you have time?” How often are you asked that question? Have you ever really thought about what it means? Of course, you say “I know what it means.” However, do you really? When people ask you if you have time, are you being asked for space, for a priority, for help, for support, for money or something else? What is it that they want your time for? In some respects, it is a silly question, since of course you have time. The real question is do you have time for them. Even more to the point, is the issue of whether your priorities and expectations match up with their priorities and expectations? Do you have time to walk their dog? Do you have time to help them with their report? Do you have time to watch their children?

We are asked this question many times a week. What goes into your decision to “make” time for others? Do you make time for people you really like or for people who you think have influence over you? Whether or not we have time will often depend on how important something is to us or how important we view our relationship with the person asking for our time. We are all very busy people, but we will take the time to help those we really care about or if the issue is something we are very interested in. The answer “no, I don’t have the time” more likely means that it is not important or interesting to me. The time I am willing to give to others can have a very ego-centric aspect to it. I give time not because I have it but because I want to. Of course, at work, if my boss asks me, I will probably have time since I want to keep my job.

Who do you really make time for? Are you selfish or generous with your time? Do you only have time for those with power over you or for those whom you love? Are you giving your time to the right people? Are you generous or selfish with your time?

Can we change the past or future?

Time has often been the theme or plot of many stories. Days repeating themselves, people living life over again, people being born in the future etc. Time travel has been a very popular theme. Several movies have been made involving the concept of traveling back or forward in time. Often the plot involves the futility of trying to change the future or the negative effects from trying to change the past. This creates what could be called the “time paradox.” If you could go back and change things, then why would you need to go back in the first place? Another dilemma time travel poses is how anyone could be alive at two places at the same time. Inevitably, the person going back discovers the futility of trying to change time. In Déjà vu, Denzel Washington was able to surmount the time paradox and successfully changed the future. Of course, it is not explained how he managed to exist at two places at the same time, but the movie is very entertaining.

Some movies have dealt with the theme of “stuck in time” as in the movie “Ground Hog Day.” In this movie, the main character Phil (played by Bill Murray) is a weatherman assigned to cover Groundhog Day in Punxsutawney Pennsylvania, where every year a big to-do is made about whether or not the ground hog comes out and sees its shadow. The outcome of this ritual is said to determine how much longer winter will go on. Bill is a disillusioned self-centered individual with a very cynical outlook on life. By some stroke of fate, he finds that he keeps waking up and reliving Groundhog Day over and over again. We surmise that he must keep repeating the day until he is able to get it right. He must develop a likable and lovable personality. The proof that he has changed lies in his ability to win the heart of a local woman played by Andie MacDowell. The character Phil is not only given a second and third but even gets a fourth and fifth chance to live his life over again and to get it right. How often have you wished you could change the past or keep repeating it until you got it right?

Now you might think that Phil was lucky and you will never get such luck but you would be wrong. Each day you get up, you have another chance to get it right. Each day is an opportunity for a new beginning and a new start. You have to make a choice. Will you keep doing the same things or will you change your life? What is one thing you would like to go back into the past to change? What if you could change it? How would your life be different today? The choice is yours to make.

How do you manage the problems of today and the problems of tomorrow?

“The problems of today versus the problems of tomorrow” is a choice we face each day. Whether to deal with the reality of life staring at us this morning or to deal with those issues that will be more important in the future? That is the real question. It is very difficult to put off fire fighting or problem fixing (short term) in order to do problem resolution or problem prevention (long-term). Dr. W. E. Deming, one of the great business leaders and thinkers of the Twentieth Century often used this phrase about the “problems of today versus the problems of tomorrow.” He counseled business leaders to run their organizations by balancing the problems that confront them on a daily business with the long term strategic issues that the organization needed to address for survival. One of his favorite comments was “putting out a fire in the hotel, does not improve the hotel.” When you think about it, as necessary as it might be, putting out fires rarely improves ones long-term position in the world.

This bit of Deming wisdom is something I try to use to manage and improve my own life. Merely focusing on today’s problems does not prepare me for the future or any real growth. It is easy to live day by day and not plan, not save and not grow for the future. How many people do you know that will not be able to afford to retire? How many people do not put money aside for their children’s education? How many people have finished their college education and never gone back to school for any further growth and development? How many people have a diet or exercise plan that they really follow?

If you are only living for today, what will your life be like tomorrow? There is a story about the man saving drowning people who had fallen in the river. He stopped pulling people out and someone said: “You can’t quit now there are still people coming down.” He replied: I am not quitting, I am just going up river to find out what is causing so many people to fall in.” There comes a time when you must stop putting band-aids on life or when you must get to the root of the problem. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. You will always have to deal with short term crisis. But if your life has no room for the future, you will just keep on having these crises. This goes for money, relationships, marriage or children. The best relationships all take time to build for the future. The issue is not how to do one or the other, the issue is how to manage all of them. It is how to manage the problems of today and the problems of tomorrow.

What do you need to plan for your future? What problems in your life need to be solved immediately? How can you balance your problems of today with your problems of the future? What future problems are you ignoring or not planning for? Why? Who could help you with these problems?

What is a gift of time?

A gift of time! In today’s time deprived world, this might just be the greatest gift of all. With everyone so busy, time becomes the most precious commodity. Bestowing such a gift on others could show how much you care for or love them. You might be poor in terms of money, wealth, material goods but you are as rich as Bill Gates in terms of time. The richest people in the world have no more time than the poorest. In fact, they may have less since they are so busy earning and accumulating money. Think of the many times that you have been blessed by others who share their time with you. Zoos, museums, libraries, food shelters, hospitals and many other organizations all run more effectively due to the time shared by volunteers.

I am particularly fond of an organization called Score: Service Core of Retired Executives. My good friend and ex-boss Lou Schultz donates a large portion of his time each week as do many other retired executives to helping new business owners become successful. Many organizations would not be able to operate without volunteers. Pro-bono is a word that we associate with lawyers giving free service, but anyone of us from carpenters to consultants could give pro-bono time each week.

Each of us has it in our power to give a gift of time both to others and to ourselves. Children, relatives, loved ones and friends might all find your gift of time more meaningful and valuable than anything else you could give them. Can you imagine a Christmas where no presents or money was exchanged? The only gifts that would be exchanged would be gifts of time. It would probably create havoc in the economy. No one would go into debt during Christmas and the mass hysteria associated with the Christmas shopping ritual would be destroyed. Why go into debt when you can make others happier by giving something even more precious than money and something you can get for free? A gift of time is a gift of humanity. It is a gift of yourself.

When was the last time you gave anyone a “gift” of time. How often do you share yourself with others? Can you think of someone whom you could give a gift of time? How does it feel to create this gift and to give it away? What if you gave a gift of time to someone each week? What if you gave yourself a gift of time each week?

What do we gain by multi-tasking and hurrying up?

“The more I’m in a hurry, the more I tend to worry.” I heard these lyrics in a song the other day. The more I’m in a hurry, the more I tend to worry. This makes a lot of sense if you think about it. When you try to go fast, you frequently end up putting things in the wrong place or forgetting to do something. For the past few years, multi-tasking was being pushed as a sort of panacea to our productivity and economic problems. If we could all learn to do things faster and to do several things at one time, we would be more efficient and productive. Recent research shows this to be false. The more we do, the dumber we do things. We do not concentrate and do an effective job when we try to do several things at one time. We don’t watch TV and write well. We don’t play cards and monitor our children well and we do not drive and talk on cell phones well. We all know these things from experience.

I have realized that when my pace speeds up and when I get going really fast, I am more worried that I will forget something or do something wrong. Generally, I am right. Going too fast, results in mistakes and doing things over. How many times in the morning when I am getting ready for work, do I end up walking back up my stairs because I forgot my phone or something else? The moral here should be that if we slow down, we will have less worry in our lives. At least, there might be some opportunities for less worry. Slowing down will not reduce all the worries in your life, but if speed kills, then you will have dying sooner as one less worry. Think of the deaths on the highways that could be prevented by less hurrying and taking life a little bit slower. Not only would you get there in one piece but the drive would be a great deal less stressful.

Would it help you to worry less, if you could take more time to do things? What is one thing you can do more slowly today? Try it and see if at the end of the week you do not feel less stressed.

Can time be slowed down or used to sooth our soul?

Zen and time: Part 2. What does it mean to experience time? Have you ever just stared at the second hand on a clock? When you do, it almost seems like the hand stops moving. As impossible as it might seem, the more you stare at the clock, the more time seems to slow down. When we are having fun or staying busy, time seems to “fly.” Hours can pass as minutes when you are engrossed or really enjoying what you are doing. As we get older, we seem to see months go by with the same rapidity that we once noticed days and weeks going by. We often hear the comment that life is faster today than it was years ago. Does that mean that time is moving faster today or is it simply our perceptions of time?

All major religions seem to value the benefit of meditation (prayer is also used for somewhat the same purpose) as a primary path to spirituality and salvation. Have you ever prayed or meditated for an hour or more? During meditation, time slows down. Life seems to pass more slowly and we are able to become more centered and less schizophrenic. Life has a way of creating chaos and disintegration with our spirits. Daily meditation or prayer is a good way to get in touch with the experience of time. There are many different disciplines and methods for both meditation and prayer. For a good overview of the many different spiritual approaches towards meditation, go to: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meditation.

At first it may seem very difficult to meditate or to find the time to meditate. If you decide to start, try doing your meditation for only five minutes each day. Do you have the time to meditate for five minutes? All of the great religious leaders and wise men have noted the value of meditation for centering ones life and being more in touch with their spiritual essence. After the first week of regular meditation or prayer ask yourself the following questions: What is my experience of time now? Has the regular meditation or prayer made a difference in my life? What if I expanded the time to ten minutes or more? What difference might this make in my life?

What is the Zen of time?

Zen and time: Part 1. I friend of mine asked me when I started this blog whether it was just going to be another time management type thing. I asked him what the problem with that was and he said “People are inundated with prescriptions and exhortations for using their time more effectively and being more compulsive about it.” I asked what he thought was the antidote and he said “We all need a more Zen-like attitude about time.” I presumed I knew what he meant, but the more I thought about it, the less I knew. I had studied Zen many years ago and was familiar with Zen meditation and Zen Buddhist philosophy. However, I had never thought about its application to time.

I once remember doing a long drive from Rhode Island to Wisconsin. The hardest part was going to be crossing NYC and getting past the large metro areas in Pennsylvania and NY. I had been doing regular Zen meditation at the time and I thought “Well, I will just use this drive time to meditate and not worry about the traffic or congestion.” I put myself into a frame of mind for sitting Zen. I did not expect the results. In what seemed like a matter of a few seconds, the next thing I remember was being on a wide open stretch of road in rural Pennsylvania. I had gone over 250 miles in some of the most traffic congested sections of the USA in what seemed like a matter of seconds. It still does not seem possible and feels more like a dream than reality. How could something like this be physically and mentally possible? Can time really stand still? Can we make life so smooth with our unconscious thought that we eliminate stress and anxiety and yet can still function? What then is a Zen-like attitude towards time?

Do you have a Zen attitude towards time? One comment I found on a web-blog was “But get some Zen and time slows down since you are actually experiencing it.” Are you experiencing time or do you just sort of anesthetize your self to it? Do you allow time to happen or do you try to control it? Are you waiting for something to happen which never does? Could your life be more exciting if it was more Zen like? I will address more of these issues in my next blog.

What does a clock ticking mean to you?

The clock is running out! I am sure that you have heard this expression at least once in your life. However, have you ever thought that it applies to just about every day of your life? The clock is always ticking. The clock is always running down and not up. The arrow of time flies towards our final meeting with eternity. Sometimes it runs out faster than we expect and sometimes slower. Sometimes it runs out for those whom we least expect it to. The healthy jogger who never smoked, who watched his/her diet and was in perfect health may just be the funeral we attend next week. Paradoxically, our obese relative who smoked and drank too much may live to be a hundred. The experts are full of contradictory studies relating to our health. Don’t eat this, do eat that, this is bad, no it is really good, watch your fat, eat more fat, watch your carbs, eat more carbs, get more exercise, get less exercise, etc. etc.

I like the quote that says: “ask not for whom the bell tolls.” This poem from John Donne helps me to feel linked to other people. Death seems to provide a kind of a linkage. We can feel sad about deaths for people whom we do not know because we are all linked together. I have six degrees of freedom with everyone in the world. How many degrees do I have with those who have already passed away or who are at deaths door? The clock is running out for all of us. The death we meet may not be the one we desire either for ourselves or for others. Today may or may not be your last day on earth or perhaps it will be the last day for someone you love very much. The clock ticking tells us to not take life for ourselves or others for granted. Each tick is a heartbeat. Each second another person takes their last breath. Better to connect now before it is too late. We will never know when the bell will toll for ourselves or anyone else.

Who are you putting off connecting to? What if their clock runs out before you can connect? How will you feel? How can you connect to them before it is too late?

What if we wasted a little time each day?

Time wasting web-sites! Have you ever felt like just wasting time? What about having a day where you can just let go of any concerns about time. We are so compulsive about time that we let it run our lives. A day when we waste time might be a day well spent. I can imagine the stress levels of the world going down. Less homicides, less road rage, less drive by shootings. Well, if you really want to give a gift to your stress levels, then you might want to visit the following website: http://freebies.about.com/od/710/tp/timewasting.htm

It has ten (I guess you could say games) that will help you to waste extraordinary amounts of time in a fun way. Alternatively, just go to Google and type in “time wasters” and you will be able to find all sorts of incredibly amusing ways to waste a little time. Spend some time foolishly. Stop worrying about time, being on time, managing time and letting time run your life. Time is not like money. If you waste money, you don’t get it back. However, each day you start with 24 hours again. Do yourself a favor, waste some time each day.

How often do you just waste time? Do you let yourself have a little fun every so often? Take some time today and just waste it. How does it feel not to be so compulsive? What if you made it a habit to waste a little bit of time each day? How would your life feel?

When are wise sayings about time wrong?

Never put off until tomorrow what you can do today! This is another one of those bits of exalted wisdom that we learned way back in our childhood. “Under the influence of this pestilent morality, I am forever letting tomorrow's work slop backwards into today's, and doing painfully and nervously today what I could do quickly and easily tomorrow.” – J. A. Spender. This quote by Spender is interesting and funny since it contradicts that old wisdom about procrastination that dogs so many of us. How many of us live by these bits of wisdom that we learn early in life and never question? There are usually two sides to every story and very few things in life are universally or unequivocally true. For every bit of wisdom, there is a counterpoint.

While there may be few absolutes, this does not mean that some old sayings and wise thoughts are not without merit. More importantly, there is another moral here, which is that few things should simply be taken for granted. According to Spender, there might also be a place for procrastination in our lives. If this is true, then we may be well advised to put off doing some things until tomorrow. Perhaps, after a good night sleep, further reflection or simply having a better day, tackling the task that feels overwhelming today will be easier tomorrow. Often I do not know where to start or what I need to do. If I put the job off for a while, I can talk to others or do some further research. I am then able to come back to the task feeling more confident and competent.

Are you driven by doing things today that might be better handled tomorrow? Do you always tackle the task even when you are not quite sure what you should be doing? What sort of things do you think you would be better putting off doing until you have some help or more guidance? What should you put off doing today, since you might just do a better job tomorrow or the day after?

How can you eliminate the time wasters in your life?

Don’t waste my time. One of the greatest sins of modern society is to waste time. It is even worse to waste someone else’s time. Unfortunately, there are numerous ways that you can waste time. Pace Productivity conducted surveys among 690 employees and entrepreneurs across North America. The first question they asked was designed to find out which factors impeded respondents' productivity that were outside of their control. The following were the top ten time wasters that respondents felt they had no control over.

135 Paperwork / administrative tasks
115 Customer requests: service / problems / complaints
101 Phone calls / phone interruptions / inquiries
86 Computer / system / equipment problems
58 No internal support / other departments' inefficiency
45 Unspecified interruptions
43 Traffic / travel
38 Meetings - too many / too long / unnecessary
38 Volume of work / not enough time
36 Staffing issues / people absent

This is a very interesting list. No doubt there are many aspects of time that we cannot control. However, the first question I have when looking at this list is the validity of the respondents’ assumption that they have “no control” over these time wasters. I admit that in several of these areas, it is difficult to have control, but the operational word is difficult. I would stop at the word impossible. I lean towards looking at what I can do to have more control over my life and I refuse to abdicate control in many of these so called time waster areas. I might only have partial control but once I assert this control, I can minimize the impact of the time wasted.

Do you see some areas above that you also feel you could take some control over? What are the biggest time wasters in your life? Do you think they are all out of your control or do you think you have some control over them? Pick one large time waster in your life. What could you do today that would help you to gain control and minimize this time waster in your life?

How to overcome procrastination?

Procrastination is a word to be feared, yet it is a word that we are all too familiar with. The dictionary defines it as “To postpone or delay needlessly.” It also traces its roots to the Latin wherein pro-crastinate means to “put forward.” Thus, when we don’t want to do something today, we put it forward until tomorrow. Sometimes that works and other times it starts creating a kind of sandbag effect in which it just seems easier to keep putting things off. Why do we procrastinate? There are many reasons. Here are some that I have found:

• I don’t know where to start
• The task seems daunting and monumental
• I am afraid I don’t have the ability
• I fear I will not be able to finish
• I am afraid of looking stupid
• I tried before and failed
• I just don’t feel like doing it

You could probably put your own list up but I would guess that it would have some similarities to my list. Is there a secret to overcoming procrastination or a solution? I think the answer is yes. We are all intimidated by the world. The people that accomplish the most are the ones who find support from others. Every year at graduation, I listen to the seniors talk about how they could not have made it without the help and support of someone else, usually their family, a teacher or friends. Going to college for four years is a major undertaking. We can never be sure if we will pass or graduate or even manage to pay the college loans off. Anyone who starts school begins a very long and precarious journey. However, as the song says “I get by with a little help from my friends.”

When you find that you are procrastinating that can be a red flag or a signal that you need some help from a friend. Working together we can do anything. Remember Ben Franklins famous quote “Either we all hang together or we all hang separately.” Why try to do it all by yourself? Musicians, chess players, actors and sports figures all have coaches. Coaches help us stay on track and provide moral and mental support. You may not be able to afford a high paying professional coach, but I will bet there is someone in your life that could help play this role. Seek this person out and enlist them in your endeavor. The secret to overcoming procrastination is to find others who can support and nurture your effort.

What are you putting forward today that you really need to do now? Who can you enlist to support you mentally, physically or emotionally in your effort? Do you need ideas or simply willpower? Who do you know that would best provide them? By the end of the day, will you be able to contact them? If not, is there someone else who could help you? Don’t procrastinate, contact them now. You will be glad you did.

Why timing is critical and what you can do to use it effectively?

“Think big, start small and deliver quickly.” I found this advice from a Vice President of Cisco Corporation. At the time, Cisco was one of the most profitable and fastest growing firms in the world. It struck me as the way we must all do business in this highly competitive global era. We must think big. We cannot just look at the world from our own petty perspective. We must view the world from the eyes of our customers, stakeholders and other world citizens. Things we do in New York affect the Amazon Rain Forest and vice versa. We must start small. Every journey begins with a single step. Every large organization or endeavor started out quite humbly.

It is no shame to start on the bottom and work your way up. We must pay our dues. It is all too easy to see those who have achieved success and think they did it overnight. However, when you look closely at success, you see it came from very humble beginnings. Finally, we must be quick. Opportunities are like a window that opens and closes or like an elevator going up and down every few seconds. Opportunities do not last long. If you do not seize the moment, someone else surely will. Nature abhors a vacuum and an opportunity is a vacuum just waiting to be filled. Opportunities are like the waves in the ocean and whenever one comes in, it is quickly spent but soon replaced by another one. You must pick the right wave and jump on it quickly or you will miss it.

I posted Cisco’s phase over my desk as a reminder. Thinking big reinforced the need for a vision worth achieving. Without a vision, we may end up building a molehill. We need a vision but we also need determination and speed. You need determination to have the stamina and patience to build your vision one day and one step at a time. You cannot know in advance if you will succeed. You will need determination to see you over the hills and valleys. You will also need speed. While you are still contemplating your great new idea, the chances are excellent that a competitor is also thinking about the same idea. Haste can make waste, but timing is everything and today you must act fast or lose the opportunity.

What good ideas do you have that you are procrastinating over? What opportunities are waiting for you to seize them? Why are you still waiting? Who or what could help you get started? If you are not sure how to get started, find someone to help you. You will regret it later if you do not act now.

Why does a stitch in time save nine?

A stitch in time saves nine. Even if you do not sew, you will know the meaning of this old saying. It is probably just one of many that you learned as a child. By now, you have heard it so many times, that you no longer remember when you learned it. It is very interesting how so many of our morals and values are guided by little sayings that we learned far back in our early childhood. They tell us we learn 90 percent of our values and morals before we are six years old. Did you ever think you were learning about time management before you were six years old?

In some ways, this saying about time tells us more about planning than all the project management courses we may take later in our lives. It is simple and memorable. It has meaning and relevance because we can all relate to the idea of prevention before a cure is needed. We also all realize that once a problem has occurred it is more difficult to deal with. The time to deal with problems is before they occur. But doing this requires good timing and planning ahead for emergencies and contingencies. If you were practicing this little homily when you were six years old, you were doing contingency planning and you probably could not even spell the word contingency.

The question is “Do we still practice it?” Is it always good advice? Are there exceptions to this pithy piece of wisdom? If you were ever in the Boy Scouts, you would be familiar with the motto “Be prepared.” But how can you be prepared for all possible emergencies? How can you be prepared if you do not take the time or have the time to think ahead? It is not always easy to “Be prepared.” One secret is not to wait until the last minute to plan. Start a list of what you will need long before you will need it. You will be surprised at how the list will grow. I can guarantee you that my students who wait until the last minute to do their assignments or papers are always the ones who do the poorest job or have the most excuses why they could not get the paper in on time. “The snow came, my computer crashed, the baby was delivered, the dog ran away, and I was sick.” These things happen to each of us every day. But if they happen on the day the project or work is due, you now have a problem.

Do you wait until the last minute or do you think ahead about what you need? Are you chronically dealing with emergencies? Do you plan ahead or wait until the deadline draws near? Where would a stitch in your life save you nine today?

Are you worried about Killing Time today?

“Well, I’ve got some time to kill today.” We have all heard and used this expression. It means that somehow we have some unexpected free time. It is time that does not need to be accounted for or time when nothing is scheduled. Many of us wish we more often had time to kill. It is a very interesting thought. I am going to kill some time. What measures do I take to kill time or how does one go about killing time. There are lists you can find of time killers. In airports, one finds that arcade games are often used simply as time killers. However, more often today, one finds people doing their work on the kiosk type internet connections available in airports. In Japan, Pachinko parlors are a major way to kill time. But can we really kill time?

How does one kill something which does not exist? If it does exist, then is time alive? Most people would say that time is not something living or biological. However, the expression seems to indicate that time is something that has a life of its own and that we can kill. With time in such short supply, it might seem immoral or unethical to kill it. It is certainly not illegal. I have not yet heard of anyone going to jail for “killing time.” But with time in such short supply, maybe killing time should be a crime. How could anyone have the audacity to kill something that is so precious and limited? Maybe we should declare that time is an endangered species and put a moratorium on “killing” time. Religions could declare it a mortal sin to kill time. We could create police units designed to ferret out people who kill time.

We could stop killing time, but then life might not be very much fun. Killing time is actually one of those breaks that we all need to take. We manage, coordinate, plan and schedule too much of our time. Time to be killed may just be one of the last pleasures of modern life. Do you ever kill time? Do you spend enough time “killing” time? Do you worry and feel guilty because you could put the time to better use? As the song goes, “Don’t worry, be happy.” Wouldn’t it be wonderful if we all could find more time to kill and worry less about being productive and managing our time?

What is the relationship between time and money? Do you really know?

I have often thought that time and money are a lot like matter and energy. Physicists tell us that matter and energy are convertible or exchangeable. Matter can be transformed into energy and energy into matter. Indeed the famous equation by Einstein E=MC2 is evidence of this ability. I believe that the same is true of time and money. If I have a great deal of time, I can do things that it would normally take money to do. For instance, I can do my own home repairs, car repairs, house cleaning etc. On the other hand, if I have lots of money, I can exchange it for time by paying someone to do these things for me and thus creating more time for myself. My theory about time and money helps me relate my time and money to each other. Thinking of them as interchangeable allows me to prioritize both my time and money and to conserve on what is most important to me. I do not treat either as them as fixed and immutable.

If I job needs to be done, I simply review my priorities and my assets (time and money are both assets to me) and decide the best way to get the task done. I might pay someone to mow my lawn if I want to do something else more productive or fun or I just might do it myself. I do not feel that I have to do all of the chores or tasks in my life. It will all depend on what it happening at that time in my life and what my goals and objectives are. A great deal will also depend on what I really feel like doing with my time and money. Without this theory, it is very easy to let people pressure you into spending time or money that you would rather conserve or exchange. For instance, I always pay a shop to do my motorcycle oil changes and tune-ups. I would rather be out riding than repairing my bikes. Many bikers abhor the thought of anyone working on their bikes. I have friends who spend more time repairing and fixing their bikes then they do riding them.

What is most important to you today? Are you sacrificing time for money when you would rather have more time? Or are you sacrificing money for time by paying to have something done you could do yourself? Are you happy with your balance between the two?

Are you ahead of the times or behind?

She was ahead of her times! That invention was ahead of its time! We are often amazed when we find out that some ideas or some products and services were either thought of or offered many years before they became popular. Wal-Mart was not well known until the 80’s but the company actually started in the early 50’s. U-Haul took off when all the baby boomers decided to move from the East coast to the West coast and needed a cheap reliable way to haul their goods out to California. However, U-Haul started shortly after World War II and was around for 20 years before it began its rapid growth.

What if you are ahead of the times? This might not always be a good thing. Sometimes inventions are too early and people are just not ready for them. The first computer created by Charles Babbage was not very practical due to its size and mode of operation. It took the invention and application of electricity to make a practical computer. The idea of applying nuclear energy began around 1900 but it took the Manhattan project and the invention of the atom bomb to show the reality and potential of nuclear power.

Thus, “timing is everything.” You can be ahead of your time and never see the success of your idea or invention. Nevertheless, most of us would rather be accused of being ahead of our time rather than “behind the times.” Have you ever been ahead of the times? Has anyone ever told you that you were ahead of the times? Do you have ideas for products and services that you see are subsequently developed by someone else? Do you capitalize on your ability to think ahead? Do you feel that you need to be more ahead of the times or are you satisfied with where you are now? What would it take for you to be more ahead of the times? How might this ability affect your life?

Do you really understand the meaning of time?

Let’s explore the way that we use some common terms or phrases concerning time. We talk about being on time, being ahead of the times and being behind the times. We use these phrases so often that they become “unconscious” and we seldom reflect on what they mean or whether they really mean what we want them to mean. We all think we know what they mean but do we really agree with what they mean? Are we using them “correctly?”

For instance, we sometimes say that someone we know is “stuck” in the past. We may say this because they seem to fondly remember their best days as when they were in high school or when they were in college or when they lived someplace else or some other time that was happier or more pleasant for them. However, are they really stuck in the past? What does it mean to be stuck in the past? Can they be partially stuck or only stuck sometimes? If so, how can they get “unstuck?” Are we all stuck in the past at least sometimes?

There are many other phrases that we use concerning time that have become so habitual with us that we take them for granted. We assume that we know what they mean when we hear them. We apply them to our lives and to those around us without thinking about how we use them or what their use implies. The novel “Alice in Wonderland” by Lewis Carroll is so powerful because the meaning of words and the way they are used in the story forces us to rethink the meaning of some very common ideas. For instance, who ever heard of an “un-birthday” party? Well, it is a wonderful twist on an expectation that you can only have a party on your birthday. You can have an “unbirthday party” 364 days a year. One of my favorite exchanges in the story takes place between Alice and Humpty Dumpty:

Humpty Dumpty: When I use a word, it means just what I choose it to mean - neither more nor less.
Alice: The question is, whether you can make words mean so many different things.
Humpty Dumpty: The question is: which is to be master - that's all.

The phrases that we use concerning time can have many different meanings. We each choose the meaning that we desire or that we learned as a child. Other people may have different meanings or different associations. For instance, what does it mean to be late? What does it mean to be on-time? Who decides what is late and who decides what is on-time is? How much is late? What does it take to be on time? Who decides? Well of course, you and I do, right? Well, then how come so much of the world seems to thwart our best efforts to be on time? Maybe we are all dancing to a different beat.

Is it worth the effort to get everybody in sync? Does everyone you know agree with your definitions of time? What if your definitions of time were more flexible? What difference would this make for your family and friends? Are you too flexible already? What if you were less flexible? Would your life be smoother and happier?

Could February be a good time for righting wrongs?

February was named after the Latin term Februltus, which means "a righting of wrongs.” It is a month when we begin looking towards the end of winter and the beginning of spring. We are now more relaxed since the holidays are long over, but it is still too cold and wintry to do much outside. So what can we do in February? Well, maybe the idea of “righting wrongs” is a good use of our time. In the 12 Step AA program, one is expected to make a list of the people they have wronged and ask for forgiveness; those friends relatives or even acquaintances that we have hurt or taken advantage of in some way.

We can all think back through the past year and remember something we did that hurt someone or something we did that we wished we could correct. Can you think of a better use of an entire month, then to make amends with the people who you have hurt, lost, forgot or even just not talked to in a long time? Who do you need to make amends with? Who could you right a wrong with? How about starting with one person today and see how it goes? Remember, you only have 28 days in February (except on leap year) so you should start soon. Think of how much better you will feel.