Ever felt you wanted to stop the world?
I’m sure as I get older, time does pass more quickly. Some people have suggested this could be the result of experiencing less new things and lives with greater routine and predictability. I disagree; the world is full of older people doing amazing new things and able to flex at a moment’s notice when young grandchildren and older adults need attention and plans have to be changed.
No. I prefer the proportion theory which explains that as we age, each year represents a smaller proportion of our lives; one year in the life of a five year old is 20% of their lived experience. For a fifty year old, it is only 2%. However, 20% of a 50 year old’s life is 10 years. Imagine thinking back to 2016 and going through all the things you’ve done since then as well as all that has happened in the world.
Whatever our perception of time there is one fact; we all have 24 hours, 7 days a week for 52 weeks of each year. People often say they don’t have enough time. Here’s an interesting idea. Imagine starting the annual clock at midnight on 31st December. If you need eight hours sleep a day and concentrating all that into one block starting at one second past midnight, sleeping would take you to the end of April. Add a similar time for working and we get to September 1st. That means we still have four complete months for all the rest of the activities; commuting, shopping, cooking, cleaning, eating, grooming, and some down time of course. Children of course and caring for others is a huge task and may swallow up much of the remainder. However, I’m sure there would be time left over. How could that be spent?
On average people in the UK spend 1 hour 37 minutes each day on social media. Let’s look at the maths;
1 hour and 37 minutes is 97 minutes each day
Which is 697 minutes a week
And 35,308 minutes a year.
35,308 minutes is just over 588 hours or 24 days
That’s a lot of time. How and where does our writing fit into any remaining time?
I’m a great believer in setting a small achievable target and seeing what happens. Perhaps 30 minutes once a week might be a start. Or perhaps flip it and set a target for only one hour a day on social media.
Or as William Penn, the 18th century Quaker who founded Pennsylvania, once wrote;
“Time is what we want most, but what we use worst.” –
