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uja .nyc. Hey,

0:32

it's Megan Garber, one of the

0:34

co -hosts of How to Know

0:36

What's Real. We're excited to

0:38

share with you a special series

0:40

drawn from past seasons of

0:42

the How -To Series. For the

0:44

last few weeks, we've been revisiting

0:46

episodes around the theme of

0:48

redirecting energy and winding down. This

0:50

episode is from season five,

0:52

How to Keep Time, and is

0:54

called How to Waste Time.

0:56

Co -hosts Ian Bogust and Becca

0:58

Rashid explore what it can look

1:00

like to let go in a

1:02

culture preoccupied with productivity and

1:05

why letting go could be just

1:07

the right thing. So

1:18

Ian, when I sent you that voice note

1:20

yesterday, I just wanted to let you

1:22

in my head a little bit. Hello

1:25

Ian. Alas, I'm

1:27

waiting at the bus stop

1:29

and it seems it will

1:31

never come. A small glimpse into

1:33

how anxious I am. Just

1:36

waiting for anything. I don't know

1:38

what to do. Do I

1:40

just start walking? Thank you.

1:42

Do I give up? Do I

1:44

walk to the At

1:47

this point who really knows? It's

1:49

been probably four minutes.

1:51

It was

1:55

only four minutes Becca. It's not very much time. It's

1:58

embarrassing. I'm standing there

2:00

and while I'm waiting, I'm switching between

2:03

two modes of like, I should be

2:05

making the most of this time. Let

2:07

me read that article my friend sent

2:09

me or check my emails. Or like,

2:12

this is insane. It's only been four

2:14

minutes. I should be a bit more

2:16

mindful. But I know that I don't

2:18

want to be wasting my time just

2:21

standing there. I'm

2:26

Becca Rashid, producer of How to

2:28

Keep Time, and I'm here with

2:30

my co-host, Ian Bogost. Hey, Becca.

2:32

Hey, Ian. A lot of your

2:34

writing and reporting here at the

2:36

Atlantic is about technology and all

2:38

the ways it's changed how we

2:40

understand ourselves and the people around

2:42

us. But I also think about

2:44

how much tech has changed our

2:46

relationship with time. Oh, yeah, sure.

2:48

I mean... Technology in general tends

2:51

to make things faster, right? Of

2:53

course. Trains and airplanes get you

2:55

places faster, factories and their machines

2:57

build things faster, but you know

2:59

communication technologies, telephones, and the internet

3:01

and whatnot, those allow us to

3:03

send and receive information faster and

3:05

a lot more frequently too. And

3:07

all of those emails and texts

3:09

and notifications keep us... occupied at

3:11

every given moment. It gives us

3:13

more stuff to do. And it

3:15

makes it easier to do something

3:18

all the time, right? Yeah, all

3:20

the time. And I think that's

3:22

exactly what makes it harder to

3:24

tolerate wasting time, just doing nothing

3:26

or being alone with your thoughts.

3:28

Your laptop, your smartphone, all the

3:30

stuff you bring with you. They

3:32

do make it easier to get

3:34

more work done or more socializing

3:36

or banking or whatever it is

3:38

that you're doing on your phone.

3:40

So, you know, for one part,

3:42

we're more efficient. But we still

3:44

continue to feel like there's just

3:47

not enough time in the day.

3:49

Right. And, you know, Becca, in

3:51

your last season, you talked about

3:53

the difficulty of building meaningful relationships.

3:55

And when it comes down to

3:57

it, most people, they just need

3:59

more. time to do that. But To

4:01

do that. when But even when we

4:03

do have more than enough

4:05

time, we don't know how to

4:07

lean into the moment the

4:09

way we used to. We're either

4:11

anxiously planning for the next

4:13

task or we're being compulsively

4:15

productive because we're sort of nervous

4:17

about free time in this new

4:19

way. stuff I mean all this time

4:22

stuff can just feel really slippery you

4:24

know One moment you know what you want to

4:26

do and you just can't find the time to

4:28

do it. to do it. But then... The next moment you're

4:30

just swimming in time and that you don't

4:32

know what to do with. swimming in So hopefully

4:34

we can make sense of some of those

4:36

problems this season. Right. So This

4:38

is how to keep time. can make sense

4:40

of some of those

4:42

problems this season. This

4:44

is how to keep

4:47

time. So, Becca, when

4:49

you're thinking about Rebecca,

4:51

when you're thinking about wasting time,

4:53

Like, what do you mean? Like

4:55

wasting time compared to what, to

4:57

doing more work? work? or

4:59

like, you know, know waiting to get back to your

5:01

desk to do more work so that you

5:04

can work so that more what, Isn't that

5:06

just a waste of time that just a

5:08

waste I know, too? No, I

5:10

know, but I always always have

5:12

the thought in the

5:14

back of my head that

5:16

my time is limited.

5:18

There's actually something called something called

5:20

chronophobia. where some people really

5:22

worry about that experience of

5:24

time passing or I can can

5:26

understand that impulse to feel

5:28

like time is Time is withering

5:31

away if you're not doing something productive

5:33

with it. I don't know. It

5:35

makes me wonder how we got to

5:37

this point of measuring our own

5:39

time our other people's time. How

5:41

do we do we actually less

5:43

of our time measuring. how much

5:45

of much of it is being wasted? When you

5:47

When you think about it, doesn't all time

5:49

time always put to use you're there in

5:51

your body and your mind. You're, you're

5:54

living through your day and your

5:56

life. No matter life no you're getting done

5:58

and your time is finite, your year on

6:00

earth are are numbered. never

6:03

going to going to be able to

6:05

do everything. everything you you want to

6:07

do everything possible. Because

6:09

of that of that. So maybe

6:11

we, rather than chasing it, it, need

6:13

to figure out how to be

6:15

in time, being in time

6:17

rather than chasing time. time.

6:20

I was completely freaked out

6:22

when I was completely freaked out

6:24

when I first did this calculation and

6:26

figured out that out that average lifespan

6:28

in the developed world is around world is

6:30

,000 weeks. Obviously, you don't know how

6:32

many weeks you're going to get

6:34

in any individual case. So Ian,

6:36

that's Oliver Ian, that's He's a journalist

6:39

and an author. and an He used

6:41

to write a column for The

6:43

Guardian the he wrote a lot about

6:45

productivity hacks and personal development. This

6:47

fact of it being finite

6:49

finite something that I think think

6:52

we intellectually understand, but we

6:54

don't behave. we don't on a day -to

6:56

-day basis, as basis as if. time were finite.

6:58

And during our interview he

7:00

our interview he mentioned what

7:02

he called a with all the

7:04

all the self -help solutions. yeah I

7:07

feel that. So I Yeah, I feel

7:09

that. lot of that kind of

7:11

think an awful lot of that kind

7:13

of conventional productivity advice is really based

7:15

on this keeping this fantasy alive that

7:17

very soon, next few weeks, next few

7:19

months, at some point, you're going to

7:21

get to this place where you are

7:24

on top of things, where you have

7:26

got your arms around everything, you're the

7:28

sort of the sort of air controller of your

7:30

life. life, you know. but then one day

7:32

after day of being in the weeds of

7:34

the lifestyle advice, he had a kind

7:36

of epiphany on a park bench during

7:38

a really stressful week when he realized

7:41

that none of the time management hacks

7:43

were working. I was trying increasingly

7:45

the time and frantically and desperately

7:47

to come up with the

7:49

set of techniques and scheduling

7:52

tricks that would enable me

7:54

to get through this ridiculous

7:56

quantity. with a set of techniques and

7:58

just being hit the thought

8:00

like, oh, oh, it's oh, it's impossible.

8:02

Oh, I see, right. Oh, I see,

8:04

right. It's impossible. Becca, I mean, I have definitely

8:07

I I have definitely also spent

8:09

years chasing time. I know that

8:11

feeling. But maybe right, right

8:13

and that the trick is just

8:15

to accept that it's impossible. Berkman

8:18

wrote a book in 2021 book in

8:20

Weeks, Time Management for Four where

8:22

he walks readers through his personal

8:24

journey with trying to get on

8:26

top of it all, on on top

8:28

of time, and

8:31

failing miserably. readers

8:33

through his personal

8:35

journey with trying

8:38

to get on top

8:40

of we're constantly trying

8:42

to reach of kind

8:45

of and failing position over our time.

8:47

Okay, when you say a God -like

8:49

position, I'm thinking like all forgiving, most

8:51

merciful. but But when you say God

8:53

-like position over time, what do you

8:55

mean by that? you mean by I think,

8:57

and again, to some extent, this may

8:59

just this may just be the and screw

9:02

-ups of me and some other

9:04

people. But I think that a

9:06

lot of what we're doing we're doing when

9:08

claim that we're that we're engaging in. more

9:11

more productive, more efficient, on

9:13

getting on top of things,

9:15

getting organized, is really an attempt

9:17

to kind of feel. unlimited with

9:19

respect to time, respect to time,

9:21

with respect to the tasks, responsibilities,

9:23

goals, goals, ambitions we might have

9:25

for using our time, a it's

9:28

a way of sort of not

9:30

having to feel what it really

9:32

feels like to be finite, to

9:34

have to make tough choices, to

9:36

have to acknowledge that they're

9:38

always going to more things more things that

9:40

it would be. to to do

9:42

with time we're ever going to. to have

9:45

the opportunity to do. It's It's

9:47

interesting you say that. I went

9:49

through this phase, you know, in my

9:51

early 20s where I realized if I

9:53

wanted to be... accomplished accomplished

9:55

at anything I would have had to

9:57

have started when I was three years old.

10:00

know, know, whether that's like gymnastics

10:02

or, you know, ice skating

10:04

or what have you. I was

10:06

already decades behind and it

10:08

can be really hard to cope

10:10

with the realization that that

10:12

time is gone and you may

10:14

not have ample time to

10:16

get there in the future I

10:19

think obviously it is possible in a very

10:21

sort of down -to -earth way to use

10:24

one's time well for some future goal, right?

10:26

But I think that on

10:28

a sort of deeper level, what a

10:30

lot of us are doing when

10:32

we're trying to use time well in

10:34

that sense, when we're sort of

10:36

deeply committed as American culture is especially

10:39

deeply committed you the idea that

10:41

every moment must be used maximally well.

10:43

It's not only that that becomes

10:45

a very sort of capitalistic idea where

10:47

the only real benefit is the

10:49

profit motive. It's also just the fact

10:51

that it's focused on the future,

10:53

right? It's all It's defining everything about

10:55

now in terms of some more

10:57

important moment coming later when it's going to actually

11:00

have its value. It's going to cash

11:02

out, you know, it's going to have

11:04

been worth doing. And so because what

11:06

happens when you do this is that you end

11:08

up like missing your life

11:10

you end up missing the present or to

11:13

speak to what you were saying, you

11:15

know, focused on. regret that you didn't

11:17

start. using your time in

11:19

this rigorously instrumental way earlier

11:21

in the past. You get

11:23

to this very strange conclusion.

11:27

The only real way to use

11:29

time really well, you know, to actually

11:31

find meaning in the present by some

11:33

definition of the term, to waste it. I

11:43

think that In many

11:45

ways, because of the world in

11:47

which we live that is so completely

11:49

committed to the idea that time

11:51

must be used for future benefits. Everything

11:54

we think of as

11:56

wasting time, as pure

11:58

idleness. is is

12:00

really defined as that because it

12:03

doesn't. lead to to something. in

12:05

the future. in the future. and I'm and

12:07

I'm even referencing my childhood as

12:09

wasted time when I should have

12:11

been training to be a gymnast

12:13

a of just of just like a you

12:15

know? you know, but In adulthood,

12:17

it's harder to see it

12:19

that way see efficiency, because time

12:21

management, and productivity. and are

12:23

all essential elements in how we

12:26

make a living. how we make a can

12:28

we approach this? this? idea

12:30

of of wasting time and how

12:32

we're conditioned to think about it, it,

12:34

not as something pulling us away

12:36

from productivity, but just as a

12:38

part of life. of life.

12:41

It's something It's something that takes a

12:43

positive effort. It feels It feels like you

12:45

shouldn't just be using your leisure time

12:47

to time to on a run. You You

12:49

have to be training for a. for a...

12:51

10K or or something. You have to

12:53

have fitness goals. goals. It's kind of a

12:55

bit embarrassing in some way, some to

12:57

have a hobby these days, but it's

12:59

really not embarrassing to have a side

13:01

hustle. And the only real difference is

13:03

that And the of those. real difference

13:06

is that it's something you're trying to turn

13:08

into a business. Whereas, trying you know, if

13:10

what you like doing is... whereas, you know, if

13:12

what you like doing is collecting,

13:14

I I don't know. know. stamps from around

13:16

the world. world. doesn't really work anymore. I'm

13:18

not sure what happened to stamp collecting these

13:20

days. happened to stamp non -productive hobby

13:23

for sheer enjoyment. a non-productive nothing

13:25

materially valuable about

13:27

that, maybe, materially mean,

13:29

well, the, that. Maybe with the... the well, the, yeah, the

13:31

he uses the phrase atelic activities. the

13:33

phrase So, you know, activities that are

13:36

not given their meaning by that are not

13:38

or where they are headed. telos or where

13:40

they are I make the attempt to

13:42

be... to be... more more

13:44

fully present, it's not going to

13:46

feel great at first because

13:48

I'm sort of running against everything

13:51

I've been. I've been conditioned

13:53

and to and to

13:55

think and that's absolutely true

13:57

in kind of kind of

13:59

listening. really listening to other people,

14:01

incredibly hard. It's really hard not

14:03

to just spend a conversation thinking

14:06

about what you plan to say

14:08

next when the noise coming from

14:10

the other person sees this for

14:12

a bit, which is of course

14:14

not really listening. And so for

14:16

me, a big part of this

14:18

is just understanding that this does

14:20

not feel second nature to many

14:22

of us. I hear you, I

14:24

mean even in this moment I

14:27

find myself thinking about what you're

14:29

saying and also ahead to all

14:31

the questions that I have left

14:33

to get through. It's sort of

14:35

like when someone asked me what

14:37

my name is and then I

14:39

tell them and they tell me

14:41

theirs but all I can remember

14:43

is my name that I said

14:46

out loud. So

14:49

Becca, maybe it's a problem in

14:51

our culture rather than in us.

14:53

Like we're just all like so

14:55

wound up over making the most

14:57

of every moment, so much that

14:59

we don't even really know anymore

15:01

what making the most of a

15:03

moment would even mean. And you

15:05

know, Ian, I've even had friends

15:07

tell me they're on dating apps

15:09

almost as... a way to productively

15:12

use their time instead of scrolling

15:14

on Instagram, at least they're, you

15:16

know, building towards a relationship. Okay,

15:18

it's been a long time since

15:20

I've dated and I never use

15:22

dating apps. Are you saying your

15:24

friends are like, well, got some

15:26

downtime, I better get my dating

15:28

in? Yes, definitely. Dating is its

15:30

own version of a productive hobby,

15:32

in my opinion. I guess it

15:34

makes sense in a certain way,

15:36

like dating as productivity or as

15:38

like an investment in your future

15:40

partnership or whatever it is that

15:42

you're after. Maybe that's where that

15:44

idea comes from, that it's, you

15:47

know, I don't want to waste

15:49

my time if this isn't going

15:51

anywhere. Like that sort of sentiment

15:53

is about. progress, that a relationship

15:55

is about moving forward and building

15:57

into whatever comes. You know,

15:59

know, your forbid your

16:01

relationship isn't going

16:03

anywhere, But like where is

16:05

where is anywhere

16:07

I don't know. I feel I don't

16:09

know, I feel like I'm

16:11

happiest when I'm just wasting time

16:14

with people, so my time with I'm

16:16

trying to make the most

16:18

of my time with someone, anyone,

16:21

I'm otherwise, I'm not trying least trying

16:23

to think about how much of

16:25

my time they're taking up or

16:27

the most efficient way to be

16:29

with them or whether it's going

16:31

somewhere or whether it's productive. or whether

16:33

it's productive. If I

16:35

am just sort of If I

16:37

am just sort of around the

16:39

house with my son fall and

16:41

my wife is very easy to

16:43

sort of fall into what needs

16:45

doing next, know, chore, this chore, that

16:47

chore preparing for the next day,

16:49

I I think if you if you can

16:52

do anything to sort to sort of yourself

16:54

in. in... a a position where

16:56

you have, you all gone on a walk

16:58

gone on a walk or all gone

17:00

to visit something or all the movie or

17:02

whatever it is, movie or whatever it is, a

17:04

know, if there's a sort of a

17:06

framework around that, it's a little bit

17:08

easier to step away from that that instrumentalist

17:10

mindset. When I I remember, I think

17:12

think attention to the senses as

17:14

opposed to thought is really

17:17

important, you know, just literally paying

17:19

attention to sight, paying touch. to

17:21

a sight, sounds, touch, is a way is a

17:23

way of... reducing the power that the

17:25

power that otherwise for people people

17:27

like me anyway goes to kind

17:29

of compulsive So how can I be both

17:31

how can I be both

17:34

mindful and engaged with my

17:36

time more generally full having to

17:38

go full to be clear, I find being

17:40

in to be clear, I find than

17:42

in this mindset rather than the instrumental,

17:45

future -focused one really difficult. and I I

17:47

think you can certainly get lost in

17:49

thought, and I'm I'm not... sure I

17:51

want to condemn that, because I

17:53

think sometimes that can be a

17:55

perfectly meaningful thing to do, but

17:57

understand and expect that it's going to

18:00

feel uncomfortable at the at

18:02

the beginning. of A lot of people these

18:04

days they they don't have time to

18:06

read. anymore and I think what And I think what

18:08

they often really mean is don't like the

18:10

they don't like the experience of

18:12

sitting down with a book their minds are

18:14

so conditioned so conditioned to moving

18:16

fast that it feels unpleasant. I've

18:18

certainly had that experience. All

18:20

All I can do, and I

18:23

find it extraordinarily effective, but

18:25

it doesn't feel like an incredibly

18:27

great or anything, but but all I do

18:29

is I remind myself that that this is

18:31

is how the first couple

18:33

of pages feel when you're wired

18:35

for speed and you're just

18:37

sitting down and you're just beginning

18:39

to read. just a novel. to

18:41

read a novel and fine, but the

18:43

discomfort does not kill you. and

18:46

it lifts. not kill you and it lifts.

18:48

So, Oliver, our, most of our conversation

18:50

has been about the necessary mindset

18:52

shift shift required to be more

18:54

in tune with each moment. And, you know,

18:56

know, it makes me think about

18:58

my friends with kids with they

19:00

have to be super present with

19:02

their child in the moment, in the

19:04

be present with themselves, enough to

19:06

be patient with their kid. And their

19:08

also need to keep up with

19:10

all the productive tasks and demands

19:12

to keep up with their own

19:14

lives. own mean, I how do we

19:16

balance these competing problems? priorities, when there

19:18

is a sort of instrumental goal, goal,

19:21

know, in the case of raising a

19:23

child and making them into a compassionate

19:25

human being in the future who can

19:27

exist and thrive on their own, and

19:29

also be present with them in the

19:31

moment. with them in the find parenting to

19:33

be an to be an for all of

19:35

this just because there is so

19:38

much pressure both internally and externally

19:40

both treat all

19:42

questions of. of what what

19:44

it means to be a good parent as

19:47

about. what you what you

19:49

need to do in order to

19:51

create the most successful future adult. adult.

19:53

You know, my son's to play the

19:55

piano. play the piano a bit. I'm I'm trying

19:57

very hard not to turn turn into a

19:59

sort of of tyrant form of parent

20:01

insisting on so much practice that

20:03

it takes all the joy out of

20:05

the experience and when instead he's

20:07

banging around on the piano and I'm

20:10

banging around on the xylophone

20:12

that we have in the house and

20:14

just making sort of not, not

20:16

exactly exactly you know i don't think

20:18

that there is any part of me in that moment

20:20

that is thinking. How can

20:22

we make this band really good

20:24

so that we can start getting

20:26

some income from touring and downloads,

20:29

right? I mean, there is something

20:31

about the letting go

20:33

into those moments that is absolutely fantastic.

20:35

But where I would most naturally go

20:37

would be like, okay, piano practice this

20:39

many minutes. you have you gone through

20:41

these exercises with parenting and life in

20:43

general always feels like you're learning just

20:46

too late. But I am learning that

20:48

there's value in the sort of ridiculousness

20:51

of making those noises in the present

20:53

rather than where they might be. So

21:05

Rebecca, the other day, I met

21:07

a colleague of mine for a

21:10

drink after work, and we went

21:12

to this sort of weird pub

21:14

in this hotel, and there was

21:16

no cell signal, no Wi -Fi network,

21:18

and I was just sitting there.

21:20

waiting for him. So I just

21:22

looked around and let people coming in

21:24

and I looked at the menu

21:27

a few times and I realized, this

21:29

is so rare. I finally, couldn't do.

21:31

anything else. And so I

21:34

didn't feel like I should. be

21:36

doing something else. because there was nothing else

21:38

I could really do. Oh, interesting. I feel like

21:40

if I was in your shoes, I would

21:43

still feel like I should be doing something

21:45

else. I probably did feel that

21:47

way in truth. But that sensation

21:49

that like it's worse to do nothing.

21:52

than to delete emails?

21:54

on your phone, And know,

21:56

it wasn't always like this. I

21:58

wrote a piece earlier. this about this.

22:00

What did people do? do before smartphones.

22:03

I don't mean like for work or

22:05

for entertainment, but what did they do

22:07

doing but what did they do with doing those off times

22:09

they were waiting for the

22:11

dentist or whatever whatever. And it was

22:13

it was it was terrible. It was

22:15

terrible. We were super bored. would, you

22:17

you would like, I remember remember being a

22:19

kid and you'd through the highlights magazine

22:21

a hundred times before the doctor finally

22:23

called you doctor finally called you or like you

22:26

could find, you on the wall, the wall. staring

22:28

at clocks. You know, in the You know, in

22:30

the past when you had the magazine or

22:32

whatever, burn you would burn through it. It

22:34

would be expended. There was only so

22:36

many pages and once you'd read them or

22:38

skim them, you were done. you were done. your And

22:40

your phone, your Instagram, whatever it is,

22:43

there's always something new. Maybe it's not interesting

22:45

to you, but it's new. but it's new. And

22:47

that feels like a a So that

22:49

discomfort associated with having nothing new

22:51

to see in the moment, that's kind

22:53

of gone away. Now there's always

22:55

something new. new. And I I

22:57

think that makes it easier for us to

22:59

think, well, I should be doing something new at

23:02

every moment. new at every and that

23:04

pressure to do something new at every

23:06

moment. new I've been at so many

23:08

dinners and we just sit down,

23:10

it's a group of people sit down, it's

23:12

a even a brief and

23:14

conversation, someone lull in like

23:16

what are we doing next? Where

23:18

are we going after this? doing next? Where

23:21

just got there. We just got there.

23:23

We're at the place, we're at

23:25

the dinner. we're at the dinner. know, Becca,

23:27

I I wonder if it's hard to tolerate

23:29

wasting time time we're always looking forward that.

23:31

that. I mean, know, I mean, we didn't used

23:33

to know that the bus was coming

23:35

in four minutes because you could look at

23:38

your phone and see it. mean, it

23:40

would come I mean, it would come presumably, and

23:42

you'd you'd be just kind of forced to

23:44

deal with the fact that the bus isn't

23:46

there for you. You're just one person in

23:48

the world and you just have to wait. to

23:50

wait. Patience,

23:54

patience, we're always being tested. Like

23:56

Like right now. be back

23:58

be back right after a quick. This

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nearest shop, order ahead and

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start earning rewards. Jennifer

24:36

points out that out that days these

24:38

actually a kind of really important.

24:40

of really important of

24:42

control. It used to It used

24:44

to be that that was was

24:46

something that people rather had

24:49

condescendingly had recommended to people who

24:51

didn't have power, right? days when the

24:53

days when women were much more

24:55

likely to be sort of obliged

24:57

to remain at home, doing domestic

24:59

things while men were out. world,

25:01

working in the world, patience was

25:03

a virtue the it's the kind of

25:06

thing that keeps people from complaining

25:08

about their situation, but as society

25:10

has sped up. up, patience changes

25:12

its role. role. Like default is that

25:14

we're all moving incredibly fast and

25:16

it becomes a form of agency.

25:18

becomes a form to be able to. to be

25:20

able with a problem, sit with an

25:22

experience. sit with an experience, not

25:25

need to bring things things to

25:27

the next stage figure out out where

25:29

they're headed. as a a little

25:31

kid, and even now now just

25:33

feeling like everything I wanted to

25:35

do in life needed to be

25:37

done today, like the concept of more

25:40

time tomorrow was never my default.

25:42

And I remember my parents would

25:44

always say, say you know know, why

25:46

are you rushing everything? you're

25:49

so young, you have so

25:51

much time. helpful to it helpful to

25:53

teach kids that time is limited

25:55

or unlimited? one leads which one leads

25:57

to kids having a better relationship?

26:00

with time as they get older. Yeah, there

26:02

is a There a way of interpreting

26:04

all this talk about time being limited

26:06

and life being short, which is

26:08

incredibly stress is right? It basically says

26:10

like, there's no time you've got like, Get

26:12

moving time, you've got got to get moving

26:15

now, you've got to fill your life

26:17

with a A million extraordinary activities

26:19

every day because every day you

26:21

really have lived? will you really have mean,

26:23

I think I mean, I think, firstly, kids

26:25

my experience have a very

26:27

natural affinity for affinity for being more.

26:30

present and less sort of

26:32

fixated on maximizing efficiency. But then

26:34

then the message, obviously in an

26:36

age an way, but like the

26:38

message here is, like the time

26:40

is finite, but that's not a

26:42

reason. but that's not

26:44

a reason to start hurrying and

26:47

fit the the absolute maximum into

26:49

a single day or a single lifetime.

26:51

a It's a reason lifetime. It's a to

26:53

cherish the time that you get and

26:55

to really show up for it

26:57

and to enjoy it. I I definitely

27:00

had. went through. a significant

27:02

period of early adulthood where I

27:04

was I was deep in the in the

27:06

kind of time efficiency mindset and

27:08

maybe one maybe one has to go

27:10

through that out the other end with other

27:12

end with some kind of insight. So

27:15

Oliver, for So all of our, for

27:17

families who people who do have serious time

27:19

constraints, they they don't always have the

27:21

luxury to choose when to spend time

27:23

with their children or when they need

27:25

to be at work. work. Is there anything

27:27

that can help? help? make these

27:29

choice restrictions a little

27:31

less painful. a I think a

27:34

lot of is easier me to say

27:36

than it will be for some will

27:38

it's much worse it's much somebody somebody if the the

27:40

decision they have to make is

27:42

between keeping food on the table table

27:44

spending quality time with their kids, for

27:46

example. their kids, for in a worse position.

27:49

just in a worse position than

27:51

me. in the identical position

27:53

to me, only in the sense

27:55

the sense that in in every hour, they can

27:57

do one thing with any moment, realistic. quickly.

28:00

And all the other ones, they

28:02

have to let go. It doesn't

28:04

mean that the choices, the options

28:06

that you have open to you

28:08

are good ones. That depends on

28:10

your situation in life and society,

28:12

absolutely. But it does mean that

28:14

you can let go to a

28:17

significant extent of being haunted by

28:19

indecision or by guilt or by

28:21

the sense that you ought to

28:23

have been doing something else with

28:25

it, right? Or that you somehow

28:27

ought to be doing more than

28:29

you can do. Nobody should ever

28:31

feel that they ought to do

28:33

more than they can do. I

28:35

feel that way more often than

28:38

not. But how do I begin

28:40

to step outside this productivity mindset

28:42

with my time? You can decide

28:44

to adopt a certain hobby or

28:46

change how you apportion your time

28:48

so as to spend more time

28:50

nurturing particular relationship or something. You're

28:52

not committing to it for the

28:54

whole of the rest of your

28:56

days. You just have to take

28:59

a bit of your time now

29:01

or very soon to do something

29:03

that matters to you, even if

29:05

it's only 10 minutes. Even if

29:07

you are not confident that you're

29:09

going to be able to do

29:11

it every day for the next

29:13

month or anything like that. But

29:15

to just do some of it.

29:18

And I think actually this is

29:20

a place where the focus on

29:22

habit building can be quite counter

29:24

productive because if you tell yourself

29:26

you're going to start meditating every

29:28

day forever, that's quite a burden.

29:30

And it's quite tempting to sort

29:32

of put it off for a

29:34

few more weeks until your schedule

29:36

clears up. If you tell yourself

29:39

you're going to do it for

29:41

10 minutes today. Right. And that's

29:43

it. Then that is the point

29:45

at which things start changing, interestingly,

29:47

in one's life, I think. I

29:49

think we all experience sometimes that

29:51

sense of simply being in or

29:53

simply being the flow of time

29:55

rather than having this kind of

29:57

clock or calendar or whatever you

30:00

visualize it, hounding you. or that

30:02

you're constantly sort of fighting. It's

30:04

just for itself. it. Well that's

30:06

obviously very close to very a pretty

30:08

deep I of, I don't know,

30:10

spiritual, Buddhist Taoist-sounding idea how actually only the present is

30:12

the present is real and that

30:14

you have to sort of find

30:16

value in it if you're going

30:19

to find value anywhere. a There's

30:21

a real argument that time in the

30:23

way we define that these days

30:25

is something that that is is

30:27

extremely important for us to for us

30:29

do. to do. Oliver, thank you

30:31

so much again for your time.

30:33

I've learned so much. so much.

30:35

been a pleasure. been a pleasure. So

30:37

back out. I think what

30:39

Oliver is saying isn't that we

30:42

should I think what Oliver is

30:44

saying isn't that we should

30:46

try to capture the literal present

30:48

moment. Now impossible. vanishes. It's vanishes. It's

30:50

gone, it's gone, it's gone. it's

30:52

But it's like a slightly

30:54

bigger now. Like a like a little

30:56

chunk of the moment that you

30:58

can be in and that

31:00

you can feel you can feel hear

31:02

what Oliver is telling us, is

31:04

telling being something more more like when I'm

31:06

off I'm off the clock at

31:08

I'm at home, I don't need

31:10

to be rearranging my pantry

31:12

immediately my my grandma would love

31:14

to have me do. I need need

31:16

to do that too. I'm just so conditioned

31:18

to be productive and feel like

31:20

when I have a minute of

31:23

down time, if I'm not working

31:25

towards one of those goals, one of those

31:27

being weighed. it is being wasted.

31:29

So So Becca, our show is called called

31:31

How Time. Time. So keeping time, like,

31:33

I was thinking was thinking about that

31:35

phrase. You know how know use it use it in

31:37

music, like you keep time. keep time

31:39

in music? Like with a

31:42

metronome? Yeah. Like the rhythmic sense of keeping

31:44

time time. Like tapping your foot. foot. Yep. You

31:46

You can't capture the present, but

31:48

you can kind of feel it moving

31:50

from present to present to present to

31:52

present to present. And I guess that's

31:54

the goal, right? I I mean, it's something I'm

31:56

definitely bad at because I'm

31:58

always thinking about. maximizing my four

32:00

thousand weeks I I even got

32:02

that much time And I I

32:05

think for me I just need

32:07

to start thinking of my

32:09

time as my own not something

32:11

that needs to be maximized

32:13

or proven to other people as

32:15

something that I'm using does that

32:17

properly. Right. What does that even

32:19

mean? just using it you're just using

32:21

it properly or not know, you might you

32:23

know you might not be productive all

32:25

the time You might might feel like

32:27

you're wasting time, but the time that

32:29

you spend is that Still yours. It's

32:31

still yours even if you're not

32:33

making something of it I

32:36

mean maybe we need

32:38

to make that absence

32:40

of productive satisfaction making something

32:43

of it. I mean,

32:45

maybe we need

32:47

to make that

32:50

absence of productive

32:53

That's all for this episode of

32:55

How to Keep Time. This

32:57

episode was hosted by Ian

32:59

by Ian me, and me, Becca I

33:01

also produced the show. the Our

33:03

editors are Claudine Abade and and

33:05

Joslin Frank. Fact by by Anna Alvarado. Our

33:07

engineer is Rob Smirciak. Rob Rob also

33:09

composed some of our music. music.

33:12

The executive producer of audio

33:14

is Claudine Abade. The

33:16

managing editor of audio

33:18

is of is Andrea Valdez. Hey, Becca,

33:21

they're finally making a movie

33:23

called called Clocks. What? It's

33:25

about time. about time. Stay

33:27

with us for next week's episode,

33:30

where we Stay with us for

33:32

next week's episode, where we explore why

33:34

we pressure ourselves to look busy, even

33:36

when we're not. on our That's on our

33:38

next episode of How to Keep Time. Time.

33:51

If you If you enjoyed this episode, take

33:53

take a listen to Season 5, How to How

33:55

Time. Time. find all You can find all

33:57

six episodes you get you get your podcasts. Next

34:01

up in our special Best of Collection

34:03

to slow down, We'll look at

34:05

how finding joy and delight first

34:07

begins with identifying what you

34:09

enjoy. enjoy. A lot of people lot of

34:11

people don't even know how they

34:13

have fun anymore as adults. grow

34:15

They grow up, they forgot

34:17

what fun looks like because they're

34:19

so busy with all of

34:21

their responsibilities and then all of

34:23

the things they think they need

34:25

to be doing to be they don't

34:27

realize, first of all how they're

34:29

spending their time. their time. So, time.

34:42

you