Time doesn’t change speeds (for a majority of humans here on earth). It just lumbers along at its own pace irregardless of us pesky humans. For the most part, a minute today is the same as a minute tomorrow and five years ago. It just doesn’t change. What changes is the way we utilize time. Time feels like it is flying if we are deep in Flow (positive) or if we are mindlessly racing from task to task (potentially negative). It also feels like it is moving at a snails pace when we are doing something we don’t enjoy or understand.

There are many clutter hacks to Marie Kondo your house, find inbox zero, and declutter your garage. They all attempt to help you gain time, energy, and focus back onto those things that matter to you by decluttering the things in your life. Time doesn’t want to take away your focus or energy, it just so happens that we continually place clutter and hurdles in our own way.

Reality shows that declutter lives and lower body weights all take on the physical aspect, the how. They do little for why we psychologically or emotionally got there in the first place. Trying to film someones emotional struggle with food or their emotional struggle with old editions of National Geographic would be difficult and the resulting show would probably be boring. They want to solve the how, not the why. The why is REALLY hard to solve. The why is hard work, always moving, and not necessarily repeatable from person to person. The how is repeatable, generic, somewhat shallow, profitable, and makes for good television.

Usage of time is deeply rooted to why and flourishes itself for everyone to see through how. Figuring out our personal why is difficult, yet not impossible. Finding a self care practice that works for you will help you define your whys. Understand and manage your whys, create and share your hows.

Simon Sinek talks about Starting with Why for a good reason. User experience design and research focus on figuring out their user / customers’ why for a good reason. The why is the root and without it, the how will be weak, misaligned, and short lived.

W.E.,

sD