“Time is the fire in which we burn”
-Soran
Are you constantly stressing about being somewhere at a particular time? Do you feel pressure when running late, not being able to leave the house quickly enough to the point of yelling at the kids or spouse to hurry up? This stress is totally unnecessary and easily avoidable by freeing yourself, ditching the clock, and becoming a ChronoNot. ( a combination of chrono– ˈkränō/ relating to time. and not nät/ used with an auxiliary verb or “be” to form the negative)
1) Get More Sleep and Feel Better
Do you have 3 pre alarms set before you actually have to get up, staggered so that the snoozes are shuffled between the other alarms? Never set an alarm again.
The human body needs sleep and most of us aren’t getting enough. We stay up later than our bodies would like us to because there’s always one more thing to do or one more episode to watch. Staying up late is fun, but waking up early the next day is the other thing. Without a clock go to sleep when you are tired, take naps and sleep in.
2) Be More Productive
Being on time is as antiquated a concept as all the other “just because” traditions that were important pre-modern civilization.
Gone are the 16-hour workdays during the industrial revolution and even the 9-5 sitting at a desk, wasting away lifestyle is no longer a thing.
A lot of western cultures still hold on to the 40 hour work week because that’s what the people did before them and they just accept that’s how it is. But let’s examine this a bit.
What is work for? Is it to sell hour sized slices of our lives we’ll never get back for less money than we are worth? Or do we work to make money and make a contribution to the betterment of mankind? It’s obviously the latter but not many people take the time to ask themselves that simple question. One of the best things about the millennials is they are really the first generation to ask why, and not take because as an answer.
More and more people and businesses are breaking free the rat race. Most of it is completely unnecessary. The world is moving more towards task-based work. That’s when you get paid for the work you do, and not for the time you waste. With a task-based job or business, you work when you feel most productive or inspired. It works out better for employees, freelancers, and employers alike. It eliminates financial waste and enables you to take your life back.
You may tell yourself you aren’t capable of getting that type of employment but everyone is good at something and there’s always someone willing to pay you for that skill or talent. You just have to look. Plan on a three to four hour work day while making the same or more than your old-fashioned counterparts.
3) Eliminate Negativity in Your Life
Why are we expected to be somewhere or do something at a certain time? The short answer is, some people are assholes.
Think about the people you know that give you grief about being “on time” or “late”. From the manager at your first food service job that sent you home and threatened to take away your only source of income for being six minutes late instead of being within the five minute time allowed, to the clinic that turned away a little sick girl who died later that day because her mom was ten minutes late for an appointment. What do they all have in common? They are all assholes, plain and simple.
Time is an artificial construct that can not thus far be controlled by us. Science tells us that most likely, all times exist concurrently, we just perceive it as linear. Try telling that to that restaurant manager.
The answer is to eliminate those people in your life that won’t adapt to a ChronoNot lifestyle. The most information I give people as to when to expect me is morning, afternoon, or evening.
Back in the olden days before the advent of mobile technology, when people were tied to a corded phone connected to a wall it may have been necessary to make plans with a friend or colleague to meet at a specific time and place or parties might miss each other by minutes with no way to reconnect without going back home and calling again hoping they weren’t calling at the same time resulting in both lines getting a busy signal and ruining the whole day.
But now everyone has the ability to know where anyone else is at any time. So setting a time or even a specific place to meet or making an appointment is absolutely unnecessary. People that insist on asking for a specific time from you either are too set in their ways or are again, just jerks. People hold on to punctuality as a way of feeling superior to others when they are the ones creating the problem of scheduling in the first place.
4) Have the World Wait for You.
I was a bit of a CronoNot long before I realized it. Way before Tivo, DVR, Netflix and On Demand, I programmed my (showing my age) VCR. Armed with a TV Guide and an 8hr video cassette I could record all the television I could watch in a day. I had seven tapes each labeled with a different day of the week so I would have an entire week to watch a program. I would also save about an hour a day fast forwarding through (showing my age again) commercials.
Now that none of that hullabaloo is necessary. Everything is in the cloud. Sitting and waiting for you whenever you are ready to enjoy it. Refuse to watch live TV. Pad your life a day. Tell yourself if it airs on Tuesday night, it will be ready for me anytime after that on the DVR, On Demand, and Hulu. Or just binge the whole season when it comes to Netflix. You are no longer at the mercy of “Appointment Television”. You are an omnipotent entity with god-like powers over your entertainment.
5) Give Your Children a Better Education
Now that you aren’t wasting your life with a 40hr work week, why would you want your little ones to?
In my opinion, seven hours of school and four hours of homework five days a week is way too much for a child. Why is a school day so long? Again, It’s just because it’s been that way for as long as anyone alive can remember. Tradition is the opposite of progress. It’s not a valid reason to subject children to losing years of their lives waiting for the other kids to catch up.
Is it better for kids to sit at a desk and be told something? Or is it better for them to learn from experiencing it in real life?
If you have a local school that isn’t stuck on times, attendance, and time-based learning, but going with the newer method of achievement based learning you are in luck and that might be a good fit for your kid. If not, homeschooling your children is a great option. There is no stress about waking up early and rushing off to school to get them to class on time. Instead, learning can be a 24/7 hands-on experience. Home Schooling isn’t your kid sitting at home in front of a desk for 8 hours or even 3. It’s a continual learning process, combined with field trips and homeschooling events where kids get to interact with one another at libraries, parks, and in nature, without the stress of clocks and calendars.
Once they’ve learned something you can move onto more advanced subjects while not artificially holding them back from learning until they get to the next grade level. But always remember Science is real.
6) Have More Leisure Time
What do you do now with all this time you’ve saved by not being a mindless automaton? Enjoy Life, you only get one and it’s finite.
7) Have Your very own Superpower
Ever been in line with someone at the grocery checkout who is boiling mad just because the line isn’t moving fast enough? Or have you had someone behind you at a traffic lite that honks their horn the second the light turns green then flips you off as they speed past you to stop at the next traffic light alongside you? What these people lack is patience.
There’s a saying, “I thought I met the woman of my dreams, but then she got up to leave before the last inning.”
With no clocks to watch, no place to be at a scheduled time, you can have Infinite Patience, and that is a superpower very few people possess. With patience, there is no road rage, no need to be rude or dismissive of others. The world would be a much better place.
-Albie