Addressing the Thieves of Time
Published on: Aug 03, 2023Filed under: Scratch
In the first half of 2023 – January through May – I finished reading sixteen books, which is one more than I finished the entire year prior. Granted, if there’s ever a hall of fame entry devoted to my reading habits (there won’t be), 2022 would have the double asterisk of “was going through a divorce” and “was reading the Wheel of Time” [1] on the entry.
Since the effective start of the summer, since June, I’ve only finished one book [2]. This is a change from roughly one book every one and a half weeks to one book in eight. I’ll leave you to do the math on that velocity change.
Part of this I can blame on the weather.
It’s decidedly top-down season on the Bronco and it’s hard for audio books to compete with Stax and Motown.
And the farm.
Hobby farms might be a hobby, but they are still a farm, and farms take up a lot of time even if they’re not producing.
Not to mention crew.
With the boathouse being so far away, this summer I've found myself spending a solid 12 hours per week either on the water or communing to it.
None of these reasons diminished my desire to read.
Nor did they change that call myself a reader.
But they did challenge my claim to that title.
Are you a reader if you aren't reading?
There’s a distinction between desire and achievement. And there’s a name for things that we want, but don’t pursue – dreams. Or, if we’re being charitable, unfulfilled desires. Either way, there’s the things we say we value, and there’s the army of tiny thieves of time and effort that stop us from achieving those things.
Those thieves of time separate who we are from we want to be, and often who we say we are.
Ditching my phone for the summer got rid of one of the most seductive time thieves, and had the added benefit of forcing some reflection. No phone means more time with my own thoughts. And what I’ve come to realize (and I am surely not the first) is that the things we fill our time with ultimately end up defining who we are.
We are not what we say.
We are not what we want.
If we’re remembered at all, its from what we do and those actions impact others.
I realized I was entering a period where the things taking my time where not necessarily the things I wanted to give my time. I was losing to the thieves. To beat them, I had to not only understand what I wanted, but I needed to turn those wants into actions.
Yes, this is easier said that done. Yes, this is easier to say for someone without a partner and without kids. I understand that. But my days do have demands. I own a small farm. I have to cook and clean. I spend 48 hours a month on crew. Not to mention working full time.
Or time and a half as of late.
The result is that even me - a single professional - does not have enough time to feel rich. Or even to feel not-time-poor.
The lack of time forced me to get introspective. And I realized I had a small list of things that I needed to do daily, in order to keep who I was from becoming who I wished to be.
The first is to sweat.
Might sound strange, but I’m still relatively young and I view sweating as a sign of taking advantage of that (relative) youth. Sometimes that means getting on the water in a shell or a kayak. Others it means lifting. Or gardening. It’s not a tough bar, I just need to use my body to the extent that I work up a sweat.
The second is to read.
I don’t limit reading here to printed words, but I also don’t count skimming the internet. This is time concentrated to either experiencing a written story or learning something. It doesn’t have to be a tremendous time, but I need to devote at least a few minutes a day to the works of others that are more meaningful than articles. I’m chewing through three different books right now and the progress is making me, frankly, happy.
The final bit is to write.
Again, I’ve got a variety of outputs here. Journaling, by far my most common means, counts. But so does writing code. Or notes here. Since these realizations – since I forced myself to decode the core values I need to exercise daily – I’ve even started on a new book, an act I haven’t undertaken in, well, at least since before my marriage.
I think I buried the thesis in that last sentence. It took a conscious effort, but in being more deliberative about how I spend my time, I’ve stumbled upon not the values, but the actions that I need to feel that I spent my day how I wanted to spend my day. The don’t need to be grand, but they do need to be. And it's not easy. Turning wants into actions means that I am deliberately not doing other things. I am saying no. But the end result is that I feel better.
Sure, I might be exhausted, or getting up earlier so that I can journal and workout before work, but at the end of the day I feel like I am keeping true. Plus, reading a book on a lunch break makes going into the office that much more enjoyable.