Spending time/paying attention and why I am mostly, always late
From The Cooks Community Archive 2021
I am sure you have heard the phrases “spend time” and “pay attention”. Time is your only currency. Forget your money, it’s a human made and earth only concept. Money is a necessity to cover the costs, which is explained in the phrase “cost of living”. You need it to live and to survive. We trade, or spend our time to obtain money to then cover the costs to live.
How do we get money to live and survive? To cover our costs? So, we can then spend our time (our real currency) how we want. At this stage its work. Your job is the basis of how you can then spend your left-over time doing the things that bring you joy. If your work is not stimulating, thought provoking or one that provides you joy and maybe costing more time than it is worth, you are in some serious trouble.
Spending your time on a job that provides you joy makes it a lot easier to bear the cost of losing it to the work and the tasks at hand. Where would you rather be and what would you rather be doing? If you are happy at work these thoughts rarely come knocking. As time is your currency you have to look at spending it smartly. Everyone is given the same time every day but what we do with that time differs. In my case, exercising, learning about start up business, writing soon to be publications and hanging out with my loved ones. If you had a budget of time, such as X number of hours to do activity Y what would you do with it? This is the thought process we go through every day. We often check our phone, watch or clock to know how much time we have left before the next thing. Do not spend your time on things that are not worth your time. Think of it as a currency. Instead of buying that shirt which costs $50, how much time is this activity going to cost me? or even, I spent 2 hours earning the costs of this shirt, is this shirt worth my time? Unlike the shirt, you can’t get a refund on your time, it’s gone forever, no op shop, no cupboard.... gone.
Similarly paying attention to things you consider a waste of time is like paying for a broken bike or an uncooked meal. Worthless. Do not pay attention to the things which bother you or that you do not find appealing such as that persons social media account, a bad show on Netflix or a person you don’t really like. However, spending your time with someone else who you want to be with (like a partner or friend) who is engaging in those behaviours is worth paying attention to if you are comfortable with what they are doing and it is within your boundaries, also providing you joy. For example, if your friends go out drinking but you don’t drink, go and spend time with them and pay attention to their conversations, but don’t drink. Take control, get a Coke and be the driver. Or if you are watching a show on Netflix with your partner that they really want to watch, be a good partner and watch it with them. They will appreciate it and most likely return the favor. You can always close your eyes anyway or pay attention to something else and their reactions to the show. Rethink your actions and you will not get so frustrated when you think you have ‘wasted time’ paying attention to something. I rarely go on social media, none of the apps are on my phone. Although I post to be relevant and so potential customers keep in me their thoughts because I do not like paying attention to others peoples activities. I have realised that if I want to see someone or speak to them, I can just ask. I do not need an algorithm to control how I pay my attention. I am paying attention to the things I want to, not have to, or have the perceived need to, such as the news.
Despite these arguments. I am a poor time manager. This is not because I view my time as more important than others, which is the common thought. I am a lateoholic (for things that are not in my control). For example, when I create a meeting for my PhD supervisors and I, it is very rare that I am even a minute late. These meetings are important, plus academics are notoriously time poor and task rich. I have also scheduled the meeting; I want to be there and it will provide me direct benefit to move forward in my work. I only have 1 hour and that’s it. X time to do Y task. But if someone else were to schedule something, a workout, a party or a coffee, I am most likely going to be... guaranteed late. I like to do a lot of things and I like to talk a lot. These traits of mine directly get in the way of my time managing. These activities are also not scheduled like a meeting to be 1 hour to obtain X outcome, they are based on ‘free time’ which could possibly go for unexpected periods of time from 30 minutes and beyond. I like to spend my time on personal agendas that directly benefit me and if those adhoc time slots which come up daily get in the way, well who's going to be late? The Cooks. I do not consider other movements such as traffic, the weather or what time the other person is getting there. I can only get there in my time, on my clock. This is not to say these ‘meetings’ are not important; I obviously want to be there because I’m going in the first place. But I’m going to go at my pace and be there when I can. I am simply choosing to spend my time how I want and paying attention to the things I find important. Because as I said at the top of this article, time is all you have.
Regardless of what I have wrote above I am still striving to be a better time manager for those most important to me. I am actually trying really hard, but when I consider the above, I am not late, I was just doing something else and getting to the destination when I could.
The most important thing I have learned about time (at this point) is that you will never get it back. Don’t waste it. Before you make your next choice, think “Is this going to cost more time than it is worth?” It may change your answer.
