Does anybody really know what time it is...

3/23/10 Clock, given away

Ask almost anyone, in any job, what the biggest obstacle to their own productivity is, and I'm willing to bet most will say TIME.

There isn't a day that goes by in my school when I am not engaged in several conversations about how things could be so much better if only we had more time. And, I agree.

Yet, it's such an odd thing to lament. Of all the things we have control over in this world, time isn't one of them. Those seconds are going to keep ticking by at the same rate (or close to it; apologies to Einstein) no matter what we do.

We battle to be more efficient, on-task, focused, organized, etc., as we should. But to think that we are ever going to really influence time is pure folly.

I'm reminded of a random survey I once read about golfers. A study had been done to determine if the fact that a round of golf could typically take four to five hours was seen as a problem by casual golfers, who might not want to give up so much time on a weekend. The results started the researcher. The overwhelming response was not that golfers felt the game took too long, it was that they were frustrated that they didn't have MORE TIME to devote to golf.

Isn't that interesting?!? Rather than contemplate a world where a round of golf might include only, say twelve holes, golfers preferred to rue the existence of the space-time continuum.

We are a messed up species.

Nonetheless, I'll be the first to admit that time is a major marker in my life. I'd rather go pants-less than leave my watch at home. In fact, since the little post on my watchband is bent, I have scraped poor little Chase's head several times with it. I'm admitting it: I've injured my son with my watch, and yet I refuse to stop wearing it.

Today, I took an old plastic clock into school and put it in the teacher's room. Predictably, it was snatched up almost immediately, again by the infamous Claudette. She promptly hung it in the corner of her kindergarten classroom, where the students "play house."

That's right, get 'em used to that clock young. It's gonna be ruling their lives for many years to come...