stand in line for us, and can use a cell phone to find the nearest
restroom in a strange city, thereby improving our way of life.
Some of these products serve to separate us from our environ-
ment and eliminate the need for social intercourse—and we feel
that these are additional benefits. Where the woodsman of yore
needed a trusty knife for dealing with his environment, we need a
raft of tools to prepare us instantly for work and life and to imme-
diately find answers to any questions we may have. When we’re
too busy, we buy our way out with a product or service to help get
us through physically and psychologically.
But here again, we should tally the true price for such conve-
niences, in time and money spent shopping, in increasing depen-
dence, and in the missed pleasures of cooking and smelling and
savoring (and, in many cases, chewing) food. We have to count up
the toll—on our eyes and stomachs and psyches—when we push
ourselves to work ever harder, ever faster, ever longer.
When you start keeping score right, sometimes you’ll also start
changing some of the decisions you make.
Limits to the Traditional Time Management Approach
“You can gain extra minutes and even hours every day by fol-
lowing these tips from a time management expert,” the article in
the tabloid newspaper announces. (You know the kind of paper
I’m talking about, the kind nobody reads, let alone buys, but that
somehow boasts a paid circulation in the millions.)
Among these tips from the expert, Lucy Hedrick, author of 365
Ways to Save Time, is:
- “If you don’t have time for reading, letter-writing, cooking or
exercise, get up earlier in the morning.”
This seems to be a favorite time-management solution. Other
experts, the ones who study sleep, estimate that Americans are
C A N Y O U R E A L LY M A N A G E T I M E?