Tuesday 2 November 2010

The Time Warp

I have been meaning to start a blog for, well, a few years. My excuse, 'I just don't have time'. Really? OK so I thought today I would, and why? Because I found myself in some sort of time warp. Starting with a discrepancy of 1 hour, I managed to get this down to a discrepancy of 6 minutes. And that was only in 2 days. My time warp started on Saturday evening.

I was having a relaxed night as the next day I was up early (for a Sunday) to take a trip to the Elemis spa, a lovely birthday treat I received from friends for my birthday in June (and why did it take me so long to get around to using this gift? 'I just don't have time!). My appointment was at 10am, which would mean I would have to leave my house at 9am to get into the city. I set my alarm for 8am, but made sure before I jumped into bed, that my clock was set an hour behind and my setting was on manual to ensure no sneaky automatic updating while I sleep. I also had a friend staying and she didn't set her phone an hour behind, but set her alarm for 9am and took off automatic too.

Sunday morning, I wake up refreshed having that whole extra hour, got ready, my friend got up, got ready and we both skipped down to the station to get a train around 8.55am. But, the train times say 9.55am. It can't be, the clocks must be wrong. After consultation with other passengers watches and bewildered looks between me and my friend, it sank in that it was now 10am, and my appointment was 10am! So much for a relaxed day as we raced as fast as we could through Waterloo, onto the tube and flying down New Bond Street like we were late for a mid week meeting. I arrived feeling disheveled, a little disappointed at loosing some time off my nice relaxing treatments and still somewhat out of sorts how time could play such nasty tricks on me!

This did off course have something to do with the clocks going back for winter (and technology and settings and trusting that when everything looks like it is a certain time - trains, TV, other people's watches, chances are they are probably in the right), but it also threw up some ideas in my head again about time and what it means and how we deal with time.

Last year I read a book called The Time Paradox by Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd. I would highly recommend this book to everyone, no matter which time warp you are in. The book in summary analyses our perception of time and how this effects our lives. If you live in the past chances are you dwell on previous happenings, if you live in the present you live for the day (and the weekend) and if you live in the future chances are you are constantly chasing future time, which may or may not come.

Ideally a balance of the 3 is what we should try and achieve. More and more I am practising how to understand more about me in my past so I can 'get out of my own way' (again another great book 'Get Out of Your Own Way' by Mark Goulston and and Philip Goldberg), give myself and make time to live in the present and take time out to relax, while knowing where I want to be in the future, setting goals and working out what I need to do to achieve these goals and what could be in my way.

So now still in a warp, my computer is 6 minutes behind my phone. When I look at my phone then go back to my PC, I feel I have gained a whole 6 minutes. So all day I have been determined to make this count, hence why I decided to make today the day I begin my blog. So I will leave you with this, make sure you make your time count, whether you are stuck in a time warp or not :o)