Saving Time

"Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save."
Will Rogers

Here is an interesting idea. How often have you had to "hurry up and wait" lately? We are always trying to do everything more efficiently. We multitask, trying to do as many things as possible at the same time. The younger generation are real experts at it, finding it easy to text message someone, work on the computer, and watch a movie all at the same time. I could never do that. But it has been shown that all this multitasking is actually less efficient than doing one thing at a time. Because any one thing is not done as well as it could be if you focused all your attention on it.

So what do we do with all this time that we have saved. We don't have any more time now than we did before all the labor saving household appliances were invented. Because we just find new things to fill up the extra time. We are desperate for things to occupy our minds and bodies. We rush to buy pet rocks and certificates saying that distant stars have been named after us. And peices of toast that supposedly have some faint image of Christ on them. We are willing to pay big bucks for entertainment, much more than we are willing to pay for practical things or for knowledge.

Half our life is spent trying to find something to do with the time we have rushed through life trying to save. But are we any further ahead from saving all this time? Hurrying up in order to wait is a frustrating lack of balance in our lives. It would be much better to relax and do your tasks as effectively as possible by taking them one at a time. And then when it comes time to do something fun, you won't be too stressed out and tired to enjoy that and you will have a much better idea of what would be the best way to spend your downtime.