making time

[cellio]

Assertion: if something is important enough to you, you'll make time for it. So if you don't have time, it's probably just not important enough to you. (It doesn't matter whether "it" is a hobby, a political cause, reading the daily newspaper, watching a certain TV show, or whatever.)

An objection I saw raised to this (in a protected entry) was, basically, that people are busy, so being too busy doesn't mean the thing isn't important. But that misses the point, I think.

Yes, of course people are busy. I'm certainly very busy, at least. But my not having time for a given activity does not pass a value judgement on the activity -- just on that activity for me at this time.

Maybe I'm weird, but when I consider taking on something new, I ask myself where the time will come from. It has to come from somewhere, after all, and those college-age days of just saying "I'll sleep less" are long past. Certain time commitments are non-negotiable: job, family time, sleep, religious commitments. (That's not an ordered list.) All else is optional. (Of course commitments once made must be kept absent permission to break them. I'm not talking about that; I'm talking about the initial decision to take on the activity/commitment.)

When my music group (On the Mark) started, I realized that for me the time would come from the informal instrumental group I was playing with. When I became generally more active on the net, that time came from casual reading (particularly science fiction). When I started using LiveJournal, I dropped some mailing lists and put the final nail in the Usenet coffin. When I began to spend more time on religion, that time came from SCA involvement. (Within the "SCA" box there has also been an ebb and flow -- fighting gave way to choir, dancing to brewing (and music), archery to scribal time, scribal time to dance research (and persona research), and so on.) When I recently became chair of a synagogue committee, I planned for an easy initial chunk of time until my board term ends in May. And, yeah, there was one season of Babylon 5 for which the answer was "sleeping less one night a week isn't so bad".

The point is: to do things you have to give up other things. Sometimes there's nothing you are ready to give up, and that's a sign that you shouldn't be taking on that new thing right now. (Again thinking about the SCA, sometimes college freshmen fail to anticipate the competing time demands of SCA activities and classes. Classes have to come first.) Sometimes there are things you could give up but the new activity just isn't important enough for you to do so -- maybe your weekly commitment to fighting practice is more important than a new gaming group. So you don't "have time" for the gaming group, but if your situation were different you would have time for gaming and no longer have time for fighting.

There are only so many hours in the day. When something new comes along, I ask myself: is there anything I'm doing, and that I'm not committed to, that is less interesting than this new thing? If so, I consider a swap. If not, then I don't have time for the new thing right now, though I might have a year ago or might a year from now.

Comments

[siderea]

There is an economists' joke/koan I really like:

Two economists were walking by the lot of a car dealership. One said, "Wow, check out that sports car! I really want it." When they passed the lot, the other said, "I guess not."

[cellio]

So true!

[dr4b]

Technically, you only have to give up other things to do something if your schedule is full. I guess it's full for most of us, though.

I've been kind of weird with Puzzle Pirates. It got me to give up on mindless IRC and other online chatting, and on spending time with a social group that was vaguely bad for me anyway. On the other hand, it also cut all of my random DDR time out, and I'm getting less exercise. I've also had less time for Eli, and he's not too happy about that.

I like to think of it as consolidating my time though. When I get sick of PP, I'm going to have a ton of free time to dole out to something else.

I've been pondering time a lot lately, but I'm not coherent enough about it yet.

[cellio]

Technically, you only have to give up other things to do something if your schedule is full.

Well, I think our schedules are always full -- leisure time and goofing-off time and daydreaming and channel-surfing are also things you choose to spend time on. Not every choice maps to something you can write on your calendar.

A friend of mine who is pretty handy and has sometimes done odd jobs once put it this way: his goofing-off time is worth $X/hour. If a job doesn't pay at least that, then absent some dire circumstances he's not going to take it. (This is in the context of supplemental income; he has a job.)

[mrpeck.livejournal.com]

This reminds me of something that Fr Dan says. He says that people generally spend their time doing what they want. He had me keeping track of my time for a little while and I had some initial suspicions that I wouldn't like the result and they turned out to be true. It can be amazing how easily time can be sucked down some hole. That exercise also confirmed my suspicion that I chronically do not get enough sleep.

[hobbitblue.livejournal.com]

Exactly, if something is important you make time, and if you're "too busy" then other things are of more relative importance. And if something is vitally important to you then it will take precedence automatically...

[anukul.livejournal.com]

I basically agree with your assertion as a principle. But I think I want 2 concessions:

Whether you call it fantasy or not, people do order the importance of things that don't manage to consistently occupy their time. Maybe this is "affection for" rather than actual actual importance, but there is a prioritization and feeling involved.

Secondly, and this is the doozy, people tend not to have total system integrity. Most folks have less than you probably do. Most of us have dreams, fantasies, and desires that are out of line (somewhat or completely) with how we actually allocate our lives. It takes courage and resolve to act consistently with your own intellectual model of what you want. Furthermore it takes courage and resolve just to have a model that you can believe in. Most people just coast.

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

I strongly agree with what Monica said, but I do agree with what Monica said, too. But I'm still inclined to decline an invitation with "I don't have time" instead of "I choose not to make time for it."

To continue belaboring the obvious: Everything that's been said about time here is also true of money. (And, presumably, most other limited resources.)

[ralphmelton.livejournal.com]

That first sentence should have been, "I strongly agree with what Monica said, but I do agree with what Anukul said, too."

[cellio]

But I'm still inclined to decline an invitation with "I don't have time" instead of "I choose not to make time for it."

Oh, yes -- me, too. That's more polite to the other person, I think. But I realize that internally, what I mean is "I choose not to make time for that".

[cellio]

Whether you call it fantasy or not, people do order the importance of things that don't manage to consistently occupy their time.

Do you mean that we optimistically over-schedule because things might not take that long or we'll somehow make it work out or the like? Yes, I'd grant that. And we probably get away with it most of the time; if the result is that you didn't get around to watching Law & Order tonight, no one else will even know. If, on the other hand, you didn't get around to buying groceries (and you share food duties with others), you'll have dropped the ball.

Most of us have dreams, fantasies, and desires that are out of line (somewhat or completely) with how we actually allocate our lives.

Yes, I can see that now that you point it out.

[siderea]

It takes courage and resolve to act consistently with your own intellectual model of what you want. Furthermore it takes courage and resolve just to have a model that you can believe in. Most people just coast.

Sure, but I do some peer counseling, and when someone comes to me and says "I really really really want to do X, but I never have time" I ask some suspicious questions. Sometimes the reason they don't act in accordance with what they want is that they're scared, or don't know how, or are in some way prevented. But sometimes, the reason they keep not finding the time is that, really, deep down, they don't want to. Conscious, rational mind however thinks they should want to. Talking to only the rational part of them won't get you the whole story.

So I take what people don't do pretty seriously as an indicator of what's going on inside them, on the deeper, less rational levels. I take it seriously as an indicator within myself.

I don't see system integrity as being a top-down process, where reason is a tyrant over the system. I see it as a partnership of the various parts. Integrity often means honestly admitting what the priorities of the less rational part are, and living in accordance with them, as opposed to the rational mind inventing priorities and imposing them on the rest of the self.

[goljerp]

I think that many people who say "they don't have time" are unaware of how, exactly, they're spending their time. Also it's hard to realize some times that there are more efficient ways of doing the same thing - think of a person constantly stuck in traffic, who doesn't know about a short-cut -- or who doesn't consider the fact that there's a train that goes the same place and doesn't get stuck in traffic.

You raise very good points. I'm going to have to think about this issue more.

[cellio]

Or who haven't found ways to parallel process -- doing work or reading the newspaper on the train is obvious, but driving time, shower time, cooking time, and whatnot can also be "thinking about things" time. I often mentally compose letters (or LJ posts or whatever) while driving; even though there were no notes involved, it's then much easier (read: faster) to compose the message when I get home. Most of writing time is actually thinking time, after all.

[alienor.livejournal.com]

syrrichard and I discussed this a bit last night. I seem to always have 'stuff' in the background of my mind, but he doesn't. It's not really a BAD thing, since the extra processing time means that he isn't as clumsy as I am.

(I need to put bumpers on our door frames)

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

I think sometimes (in my case) the problem may come from not accurately evaluating the time committment required. For example, in a normal week...I can probably sail through no problem...but what is a normal week?

What about "busy times" for a particular activity. In the religious setting, what about holiday times? In the musical setting, what about the leadup to a concert? In a church music setting, what about the leadup to the holidays? And when in more than one of the above, what happens when everything hits at once?

Example (i think I've mentioned this previously in my journal) will be the weekend of Nov. 29-30 for me. In those two days, I will have: one dress rehearsal to play for, two concerts of Handel's Messiah to sing in, about 6 hours on a bus (3 hours there, 3 hours back), a church service, and a Christmas concert.

But the concerts are infrequent enough that I basically tend to consider only the rehearsals when deciding if it fits into my schedule.

The other problem may be not realising my limitations...how much activity is too much on a normal basis?

[cellio]

Good points. Sometimes we can't tell until we're in, and then we have to adjust. We'd have to do the same thing if something non-optional came up and pushed the "optional" activities.

Crunches happen to everyone and when they overlap it's even worse, and most of the time all you can do is ride them out. When crunches become the norm rather than the exception, though, it's time to re-evaluate. (I don't think that's your situation; you know it's going to happen and you've probably adjusted your other commitments near that time to compensate.)

[cafemusique.livejournal.com]

Yes, I put off the handbell choir until January, because I knew November/December would be crazy. I think I was just off on a tangent...for me, the problem isn't living up to my committments, I'm more likely to drive myself into the ground than disappoint somebody else. A case of a good thing taken too far.

I don't know...I"m not thinking clearly about myself today. (Either that or I'm thinking way too clearly...either way, I'm not thinking normally.)

[aliza250.livejournal.com]

You're assuming that people are rational and informed - that when they set priorities, they have a realistic understanding of the relative time demands, and can accurately predict how much value the outcome will have for them.