Is Your TIME out of Alignment?

A recent article that Elaine wrote for the KV STYLE magazine , you can also read it online here

This week I was inspired to write about Time. A friend and I were chatting and she wondered why she had such difficulty getting to places on time and managing her time in general. She wondered if there was a trick to the whole time thing. 

Here is a true story of my evolving relationship with TIME and the tricks I have used successfully along the way.

I was not always so great with “TIME”.

There were five clocks as wedding gifts for the skipper and I. Obviously other people also recognized that our relationship with time was out of sync. Ok it was extremely out of sync…so much so that people called us the Tardy Twins; we were perpetually late for everything.

People were telling us something, without coming right out and telling us. I am sure the message was this…we were late too often, it was rude and could we please respect them enough to not waste their time.

It was an eye opener and it got my attention.

I started analyzing why I was late and here are some of the reason that stuck out for me that may also resonate with you.

• Misjudging the amount of time it took to get somewhere, causing me to be late.
• Underestimating the time frame to complete something and therefore things I had committed to were late. Mostly work obligations.
• Stopping to finish that one last thing before I would leave the house, ultimately causing tardiness.

In my research on time I found two Greek words used for “time.” One word is chronos; the other is kairos. Chronos has to do with calendars, seasons, dates, clocks, chronometers.  It is chronological or sequential time. Kairos has to do with the fullness of time, when circumstances are right for something to take place.

Chronos being the external relationship with time and Kairos being the internal time clock.

On my TIME journey, one of the strategies I used to help me was an exercise to figure out how long it took to accomplish tasks and to get to specific places. I realized that it took 20 minutes to get to town and get parked so instead of leaving 10 minutes before I needed to be there I started leaving 20 minutes before. Another situation where I have used this time trick is for housework. I know it takes 30 minutes to clean each level of my home. I know have 30 minutes time slots in my weekly schedule that easily accommodate the cleaning chore.

There are no magic tricks…time is time.

It really is about awareness…your awareness of how you relate to your time.

I have come to rely on my internal time clock and have not worn a watch for over 5 years. I arrive at appointments on time…most of the time and feel like I have a better relationship with time and how I can use my 168 hours every week to the fullest.

Today while driving the kids to school I saw the funniest license plate…it said, “IAMLATE” those 7 letters said it all.

All the time manipulating and scheduling aside …sometimes people are just going to be late.