Library Notes
Rebecca Hyde – November 1, 2009


How do you perceive time? Most of us feel we have too little time to accomplish everything we want to do. On the other hand, we live longer and have access to high-speed technology. What is the problem?

Bodil Jonsson, a Swedish physicist, has examined for years our problem with time and offers in the little book “Unwinding the Clock” her thoughts on time management. Most important is the understanding of our relationship to time, and Jonsson offers ten thoughts on the subject in ten short chapters. She opens with the commonly held attitudes of “we don’t have enough time” and “time is money.” Jonsson argues that time is the only thing you really have, and that it is capital easily transformed into interactions with other people, with your surroundings, or into the development of thoughts and feelings. We think we can “buy” time with one gadget after another. But Jonsson asks: So what are you going to do with that time? And you can’t keep buying time, since the pace is faster and faster.

Time management for Jonsson is essentially taking “time out” to become conscious of our relationship to time and then setting different priorities. It is a personal matter “impossible to take in unless you work through it deep inside yourself, at your very core,” and then return to it throughout your life. Other provocative chapters include “Clock Time and Experienced Time, “Divided and Undivided Time,” “Rhythm and Nonrhythm.” That last chapter may help explain our frustrations traffic rhythms, the nonrhythms of meetings, and with people whose conversational and thought rhythms do not agree with ours.

Psychologists Zimbardo and Boyd offer their perspective on our “most irreplaceable resource” in “The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life.” Our attitudes toward time have a profound impact on our lives and our world, and yet we seldom recognize this. For example, an individual’s relationship to time can influence important behaviors such as helping a stranger in distress. Future-oriented people are most likely to be successful and the least likely to help others in need. Present-oriented people tend to be willing to help others but appear less willing or able to help themselves. Those people whose perspective is the past make decisions bound by positive and negatives memories. Ideally, you want to develop a balanced time perspective in place of a narrowly focused single time zone. Optimal decisions are made when you can flexibly shift from past to present to future in response to the demands of the situation. So spend your time wisely and enjoy it well.