Day 3 – Time is yours

For day 3, I explore some tools on how to own our own time.

In The Big Leap by Gay Hendricks, Gay suggests that time comes from us. We are the producer of time and there’s an abundance of it. Once we realize that, we can see how we can make as much time as we need to do everything we can do.

Time speeds up or slows down based on our perspective. To articulate this point, Hendricks uses the example of a person holding a bowling ball for 5 minutes is going to think the 5 minutes is going extremely slow, whereas friends chatting are going to think the 5 minutes goes extremely fast.

Hendricks draws the conclusion that we must be the source of time. He suggests that once you realize that you are the source of time, you will never run out of it. For more on The Big Leap or to explore Hendricks’ techniques, visit the Hendricks Institute here.

I love this idea, but in order to bring it to life, I wanted tools to help me be the source of my own time. So I pulled together some of my personal research and observations on the properties of time, as well as the observations of other scientists and philosophers and I compiled a few tools that we can use to own our own time.

TO SLOW DOWN TIME:

1. Stop thinking in terms of scarcity. This tool was also suggested by Hendricks. If something is scarce, we instinctively hoard it, which in turn makes it even more scarce. Just look at the toilet paper conundrum of 2020. When time is scarce, we get into the mindset that we don’t have enough of it, and that’s how we start to pack our schedules full and try to multi task, cramming in every opportunity into ever second, causing us to really not enjoy the time we have, and often “run late” to things. Time is not actually scarce. It’s in a perpetual state of now. Once time has past, it no longer exists anywhere except in your thoughts and the future has not yet happened. There is just the now and what you chose to do with your now. If you catch yourself saying “I don’t have time for that” it’s because you haven’t prioritized whatever that is to make time. Hendricks suggests, and I quite agree, that we should move our mindset from that of scarcity to that of abundance. Once we think there is an abundant amount of time to do whatever it is that we need to do, and we have exactly the time we need to do it, we begin to prioritize more intelligently. King David, in the bible echos this sentiment of abundance when he says, “The Lord is my shepherd, I lack nothing” or also translated “I shall want nothing” (Psalms 23:1), in other words, I have everything I need. When you realize time is abundant and can put that mindset into practice, it removes stress and fear and it widens the space, which in turn slows time down. I suspect this phenomenon is directly related to Einstein’s theory of relativity.
2. Pay attention to the details. Remember how slow time moved for the guy holding the bowling ball? You’ve probably already observed that things go slow when you are suffering and go fast when you are enjoying them. I have good news. I don’t think suffering and enjoyment are the true determining factors for the speed of time, I think it’s our attention to details. We tend to pay closer attention to minute details when we are suffering and less attention when we having fun and are caught up in the flow. If we make our thinking in the now bigger or deeper, our perception of time slows down. For instance being here now, present, or mindful, can slow down our perception of time. Scientists have made similar observations. David Eagleman is a neuroscientist who discovered that the more detailed the memory, the longer the moment lasted for the observer. He suggests that one way you can pay closer attention to the details in a moment is to seek novelty. Treat everything like it’s the first time you are seeing it. The Buddhists call this beginner’s mind, and it’s a technique they have been using for centuries to bring attention to the now.
3. Interrupt the flow. Flow is when you’re so lost in something that you’re not even thinking about time. It’s quite enjoyable and the pay out is immense. We gain great efficiencies in work when we can work off momentum and keep the flow going. As a writer, I find that when I am in my flow, my best work comes out. Because of this exponential reward for staying in my flow, admittedly I get a little frustrated when I get interrupted. However, about two or three years ago, I realized that when I practice enjoying the interruption, my attitude towards being interrupted changes. Why is this important with time? As I mentioned before, time appears to move faster when you are in the flow. When we interrupt the flow, time slows down. If you want time to slow down AND to still be able to enjoy your time, I recommend you learn to enjoy the interruption, and you can do that by practicing interruption and being mindful of your experience when it happens unexpectedly. My personal favorite technique on finding a way to enjoy the unexpected interruption is to seek a deep understanding of what the universe is trying to tell me when I get interrupted. I look to see what I could learn from the situation.

TO SPEED UP TIME: 

I can think of two ways to speed up time.

1. The easiest thing to do to speed up time is to get into “flow”. Hendricks calls this working in your zone of genius. While this is certainly a way to speed time up, I don’t know why you would want to speed through something you are enjoying.
2. The only reason I can think of to want time to go quickly is if the thing you are looking forward to is perceived to be more exciting than the thing you are experiencing now. If this is where you are, all you have to do to speed up time is to do the opposite of what I said above. Pack a lot into a day or multi task. Take on a lot of activities at once, so that you can’t focus on the details of whatever is causing you suffering.

TO HAVE MORE TIME:

To have more time, learn the meaning of “yes”. I am not suggesting you yes to more things, actually I propose exactly the opposite. I suspect when you learn the true meaning of your yes, you will start saying “no” more often. Tim Ferris pointed out to me (and a million other followers) that when you are saying “yes” to something, you are actually saying “no” to something else. Sometimes when we take on too many things, we say “no” to necessary things like rest and sleep, eating, and basic self care. Often we don’t even realize it until we have gone days without our self care. Think about it next time you commit to taking on a new task or project, before you can give a full bodied “yes,” explore what it is that you would have to say “no” to, and for how long you have to say “no” to it, before you say “yes” to the other thing. That way if you do decide to say “yes,” then you can have a complete understanding of both where your time is going and where it’s not going. By saying “no” to more things, we are actually prioritizing our “yeses”. It would have been easier for me to say that in order to have more time you have to say “no” to things, and no doubt that would have made immediate sense, but I wanted you to consider the real price of your “yeses”.

TO ENJOY THE TIME WE HAVE: 

1. To enjoy your time, love it. It’s a simple concept, but often seemingly difficult to execute. How could we love suffering, if our moment right now causes suffering. Once again, we have to shift our mindset. If we think something is suffering, it surely will be. But if we think it is enjoyable, we will experience joy. In my research of the earth’s major religions, it seems to me that Buddhists are educated in the art of loving what is. But if you’re not ready to research Buddhist techniques, and you’re looking for some simple tools to love what is, try Byron Kaytie’s book, Loving What Is. She gives us 4 simple questions and a turn around to completely change our mind about any negative thoughts. She calls it “The Work”. While I was skeptical at first, when I really put my mind and heart into doing the work, it actually worked, and it continues to work every single time I put the effort into doing it. Anytime I am upset about anything, if I do The Work, I am able to get out of my negative mindset and get back into a positive one. I am able to love what is, no matter what that is. It’s in a large part because of my work with The Work that I can honestly say that I feel blessed to have had cancer. Because of the significant mind-shift Katie’s Work had on me, I highly recommend you read her book or check out her website here. If you are more interested in exploring this concept via a podcast, check out her interview with Oprah on Oprah’s “Super Soul Podcast” here.

My grandfather was on to something when he used to say, “If you can’t do what you love, at least learn to love what you do.” If you can truly love what you do, nothing you do will feel like work.

I look forward to hearing from you about your perspective. Let me know if there’s other tools you use to own your own time.