Posted by Michele
on August 22, 2008, 17:56:53, in reply to "Rush, rush, rush"
Have you read Take Back Your Time: Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America by John de Graaf? It's a compendium of essays by people from all fields of study about how our concept of time is socially constructed mainly by marketers trying to sell us things that will save us time. He also covers the slow food movement, the simplicity movement and lots of other solutions. It's one of my fave books!
Back in the 80s I went through the rush, rush, rush thing. My day planner was FULL. My phone was constantly ringing. Ug. I woke up one day and realized I hated that lifestyle. I threw out the dayplanner, quit my job, focused on school, quit wearing a watch unless I'm teaching in the classroom, turned off the ringer on the phone (I still don't own a cell phone), and took back my life. I absolutely refuse to buy products that are supposed to "save me time." I think yoga and my study of Zen really helped, too. I'm not saying these things will work for everyone, but the biggest step was figuring out what I really wanted to do and cutting out the excess baggage (committees, clubs, horrible job and the phone in my case). I still have to keep asking myself what my focus should be so that I don't fall back into old habits. It's a process :-)
Does that answer help?
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