Tempus fugit...and time flies too!

I didn't used to think about time much, until I took a time management class. That was going to solve all my time problems and really get myself organized. It was required when I was a fledgling administrator at BYU-Hawaii. I think it was sponsored by Daytimer at the time and for me, it didn't take. Then along came the Franklin Planner a few years later, and we were all required to take that one seminar too - and actually use a planner, with goals and everything. I tried it - but when you're a daydreamer instead of a daytimer, it's hard. But I did start writing down goals - until I realized that I could never keep them very well and really got discouraged. I was supposed to prioritize them into A, B and C categories, in order of importance. Just couldn't do it, because everything seemed important at the time.

I'd write down a lot of stuff - but forget to look at it again and didn't use it half the time. Then I used it as a journal for awhile, getting maybe 10-15 years of journal writing for posterity and storing it in my closet in annuals, never to look at it again. Nor will my kids either, I'm sure. Now my desk is full of yellow sticky notes, stuck all over my computer, all over my printer and all over my desk, in piles, in my drawer - manageable in size but hard to keep from floating all over the place after the sticky wears out. But that was the purpose of the planner, wasn't it? To eliminate all the floating little pieces of paper?

I was really into Edward Hall's books for awhile, because they helped explain how differently certain cultures look at time. Americans are very time-based in their thinking, and being on time for whatever is a high cultural value. In other cultures, like in Hawaii when I lived there, time was not such a big deal, and you were supposed to float with the occasion, lay back and relax, not worry, take it easy...Hawaiians had their own Hawaiian time for starting things, which was usually 10-15 minutes after the appointed time. Even church started 10 minutes late in honor of Hawaiian time, which took precedence over God's time. But now, I can probably count the years I have left on my two hands...though it really is in God's hands.