the pause button.

When you are measuring time against the growth of small children it moves fast - sometimes too fast.  I am starting to see why parents of older kids are always telling new parents  'Enjoy it!  It goes by so fast!'  I try to slow life down a bit (which is of course impossible) by doing creative "shuffling".  I move appointments, cancel plans, run three errands at a time or do two things at once.  I love folding five loads of laundry while I am on a conference call.  In my mind, I just won that hour back.  

Still, no matter how efficiently I schedule my days or productively I use my time, there are still moments I just really want to hit the pause button on the giant flat-screen of life and have time stand still for a minute.  Times I wish the whole world would stop moving around me so I could catch my breath, take it all in, and enjoy.

Time is a strange thing.  We're constantly spending it, yet there is no way to really go back and be sure we got our money's worth.  Speaking of money, let's take online banking as an example.  I can hop online whenever I please and see where every penny I spent in the last day, week or month went.  Heck, my bank even generates a handy-dandy little pie chart off to the right of my purchases to show me what percentage of my spending went toward utilities/entertainment/mortgage, etc.  My itemized purchases might look something like this (or since these are actual charges, exactly like this):

06/10/2014
PURCHASE / 06-09-14 RITE AID STORE #10 MILFORD NH
  $50.00
06/10/2014
PURCHASE / 06-07-14 WHITE DUCK CAR WAS MILFORD NH
  $10.00
06/10/2014
PURCHASE / 06-09-14 BRUSTER'S ICE CREA NASHUA NH
  $4.49
06/09/2014
PURCHASE / 06-08-14 MOULTON[S MARKET AMHERST NH
  $23.57
06/09/2014
PURCHASE / 06-06-14 LOWES #01907* BEDFORD NH
  $161.99
06/06/2014
PURCHASE / 06-06-14 Amazon Video On Demand WA
  $1.99

I have no idea who charged that $4.49 at Bruster's Ice Cream on 6/9 on her way home from work.  I mean on their way home from work.  I mean I don't know who would ever get an ice cream on their way home from work.  Must have been for the kids (cough).

Wouldn't it be interesting to see your day and the way you spent your time itemized that clearly for your review?  An average day might look like:

06/10/2014

6:03-6:35  WATCHED CURIOUS GEORGE AND CUDDLED
6:36-7:15  SHOWERED AND MADE COFFEE
7:15-7:31  DRANK SAID COFFEE AND GOT KIDS READY FOR SCHOOL
7:32-8:24  COMMUTE  (LISTENED TO NPR AND CHATTED WITH MOM)
8:25-8:39  GOT MORE COFFEE, ATE BREAKFAST AND POWERED UP COMPUTER
8:40-9:22  READ EMAILS FROM NIGHT BEFORE AND CHECKED BANK ACCOUNTS
9:23-9:37  DISCUSSED SLEEPING HABITS OF THREE YEAR OLD WITH A COWORKER

Holy crap is my life boring, but you get the point.  I think even the most productive among us would probably be surprised to see a break-down of how wisely we are spending our time.  I wonder what changes, if any, we would make if we all had the online banking view of time spent?  

This is a great clip on work/life balance and how to make the most of your time that I recently caught during a lunch workshop.  It's so funny to hear the speaker describe how he thought he would be spending his time as compared to how he actually ended up spending it - take a listen:

http://www.ted.com/talks/nigel_marsh_how_to_make_work_life_balance_work


We have all heard the expressions 'time is money' or 'time is our most valuable resource'.  I'll take it a step further and say I think it's fair to say that asking for someone's time is the same as asking for a little piece of their life.  Rather than saying "Hey, do you have some time today to review the reports you sent me last week?" we should just say "Hey, can I have a little bit of your life today to review the reports you sent me last week?"  After all, that's what we're really asking for right?  A little crumb of time - and we have no idea how big the cookie is.

My husband has many wonderful qualities, but punctuality is not one of them.  I have this sideways theory on his chronic tardiness that he has a hard time swallowing.  I say that if someone is waiting for you, being late is the same as saying that your time is more important than theirs.  It sends a quiet message that you feel it is okay for them to waste their time waiting for you, because whatever activity caused your tardiness is more important than the activity they had to forego to be on time.  It's a passive insult.  When I say things like this I can almost see the little cartoon bubble floating above his head that reads:

The positive side of that coin is acknowledging the gift of someone else's time when they choose to spend it with you.  In New Hampshire we get about twenty beautiful, sunny Saturdays per year...on a good year.  Only about half of those twenty Saturdays fall during the summer months.  Those summer Saturdays are precious.  When a friend or family member chooses to spend their sunny Saturday afternoon with us I take it as a compliment, that they value our time together enough to spend it at our home visiting, eating, whatever.  Because after all, it's their summer Saturday afternoon too, and there's only so many of them.

We can multi-task all we want.  We can organize our busy lives into perfect fifteen minute increments to maximize our time - but it's all for nothing if we're not enjoying the time we spend.  

Summer has arrived (insert excited squeal here).  

It is your season and it is your time.  You get to decide how to spend it best and who best to spend it with.  And when that perfect summer moment arrives, that rare sunny day when the air smells like cut grass, the drink in your hand is cold and the people you love are smiling - close your eyes.  And hit the pause button.

*Thank you for the time you took to read this.  I thoroughly enjoyed the time it took me to write it (wink).*