Stop Being the Clock’s Puppet
Sociologists believe there are two distinctly different ways humans relate to time: those who live by “clock time” and those who live by “event time.” Clock time people run their lives according to the clock as the name implies. Their schedule is the primary guiding anchor where tasks are assigned to specific times of the day. By contrast, event time people run their days by events. Each task starts after the previous one is finished — whatever time it is. A task is complete when they feel done. They take as much time as they need for their meetings and they end the meeting when they feel the topic has run its course. Lunchtime is when they’re hungry, and bedtime is when they feel sleepy.
Sounds chaotic? Not to the majority of the population of the earth! In fact, all humans followed the event time until the industrial revolution happened in the west. This is when wage hours took over as the economic unit employers used to manage labor costs in the 18th century. Suddenly, everyone started thinking in terms of ‘wages per hour’ and the hours of the workday. The rising and setting sun didn’t matter anymore. The clock started to rule. Then, in the 19th century, the efficiency and productivity requirements were taken to the next level. Frederick Windslow Taylor introduced ‘scientific time management’ which led to Taylorism, an optimization of total workflow.
Nevertheless, the push for efficiency did not succeed in changing everyone’s behavior toward clock time. There has been a lot of research on this but no one’s sure how our preferences for one model develop. Western culture is predominantly clock time. Yet, you see a lot of people who spend their formative years in this clock time culture and follow the event time model. Perhaps, the event time model is more attuned to human nature and the desire to linger in a moment and feel greater contentment.
Research has shown significant benefits for the event time model. Specifically, researchers believe relying on the clock decreases your chance of seizing opportunities. Also, clock time can sometimes negatively influence your productivity. Clock time was originally designed for standardized tasks back in the 18th century when productivity was about factory workers’ throughput. In the 21st century, however, knowledge workers can seriously impair their performance if they maintain rigid adherence to the clock time. Designers need time to let an idea expand and take shape. Creative artists need to let their art reveal itself slowly. This type of work can’t be boxed in time.
So, is everything wrong with the clock time? The reality is that without the clock, humanity would not have made it this far. Taylorism was responsible for much of the industrial world's success from the United States in the west to Japan in the east. The clock is responsible for the control of the massive transportation system across the world. The train from Zurich to Luzern is planned to leave at 9:02 tomorrow morning and arrive at exactly 10:07 — thanks to the clock. A doctor's appointment is made at 3:00 PM tomorrow. It would be chaos to visit a doctor without appointments. Project deadlines enable progress. Without deadlines, nothing moves the needle!
We seem to face the paradox of having to use the clock time but miss out on the benefits of event time. The fact is that most individuals can and do operate on both modes, and will switch mind frames all the time. So, even if you’re a hardcore clock timer, it’s unlikely that you see someone at a social event and say ‘Can I book an appointment with you for a chat from 09:16 to 09:18?!’ So, everyone is somewhere on the spectrum between pure clock time and pure event time.
Which mode works best to get things done on a to-do list? Event timers do not have a clear plan for their days and would prefer to choose their next action based on the context and circumstances. They also would like to take as long as it takes to finish a task. On the other hand, clock timers schedule every task and follow the schedule. Event timers usually lack efficiency in their work, are very prone to miss deadlines, and are not good with work-life balance. On the other hand, clock timers miss opportunities more often and are too quick to close tasks and projects that are half-baked.
SkedPal has introduced the Fuzzy Planning concept aimed to offer the benefits of both clock time and event time. The goal of SkedPal is to enable people with the flexibility to explore incoming opportunities while being cognizant of the existing commitments and deadlines. It allows people to linger in a task to take it to a satisfactory completion while being able to prioritize and triage other tasks. While time blocking continues to offer enormous productivity gains, too much rigidity in the schedule causes burnout and failure. The best way is the balanced approach where there is a conditional commitment to the time blocks with openness towards new opportunities. This is where clock time meets event time!
