I'm late! I'm late! How often do you hear this in society today, especially where family life is concerned? Why are we so stressed about time in the modern world? It seems that the more one focuses on time, the less time one has!
Everywhere I go at the moment, I’m constantly bumping into people who don’t have time; their words and not mine! No time to meet, no time to relax, no time to take time, with crazy claims like we are running out of time. How is this possible when many psychologists believe that time is actually a mind created illusion?
So let’s solve this time riddle once and for all in practical family terms. The first thing to understand is that man-invented time and it’s not something that naturally exists, except in our minds. In fact most people on planet earth today perceive time in Newtonian Physics terms. Sir Isaac suggested that time is like a river flowing uniformly forward. Where we are on the river right now is the present; where we are heading is the future and what we have left behind is the past. If you are nodding to this explanation, then we have a problem Houston, because this is a description of time, which is a 200+ years old out of date concept and proved wrong by Einstein’s theory of special relativity, whereby time is looped. Now this is a rabbit hole that I do not want to get further into, but if you want more information read the book “In search of time” by Dan Falk, who in my view has made the best contribution to explaining the complex history of time in simple terms. The only point you need to take out of this is that we perceive time wrongly and it’s a mind created perspective.
Solving the issue of family time management is not a matter of ABC systems, or being extremely efficient. In today’s world, regardless of how efficient (this leads to stress) you are, you will never be able to meet all your objectives, assuming you have a moderately active life. We are living in the age of information overload and all of our time saving devices actually generate more tasks.
The secret is to look at the big picture and to understand the importance of priorities. The Godfather of prioritization linked to time management is the “Pareto Principle”. Pareto was an Italian economist who studied real life in combination with the economy and through thousands of research papers he discovered a general rule, which states:
· There are a significant few activities from which we gain most value and results
· There are a trivial many activities from which we gain very little value or results
· The “significant few” take up 20% of our activities and time
· The “trivial many” take up 80% of our activities and time
Rigorously applying this principle to family life makes us think very carefully about what activities really matter! It is, therefore, important to identify the significant 20% of our activities or topics that make all the difference to our lives and to focus on them to bring about the best life changing results.
Here are some simple examples for guidance:
1. 20% of our daily activities bring us 80% of our joy
Identify what these activities are and pay more time and attention to them, while reducing the activities, which make little difference. Now apply a similar response to the remaining examples.
2. 20% of our friends give us 80% of our social happiness
3. 80% of our financial results comes from just 20% of our working activities
4. 80% of our daily stress comes from 20% of life’s potential triggers
To conclude, I urge all parents reading this article to reconsider what really matters most to your family and to devote more time to it. In parallel, try to spend less time on the activities, habits, customs and social conformities that bring you little value, because cramming too much unnecessary clutter into life dilutes the essence of the family experience.
Sharon Holmes
www.larnacaparentsnetwork.com
