The time change (either way) always sneaks up on me.  About mid-morning, twice a year, I hear myself say to my wife in a startled voice, “It was last night?”

Why would the readout on a clock instantly make me tired?  I felt rested this morning until I realized I wasn’t looking at the ‘real’ time. 

The power of that device.     

The power we give it.

And it’s all perception, really.

But perception is reality, right?  So since we’re all perceiving that we’ve “lost an hour” of our lives, I wanted to:

1-share an idea that will get that hour back for you, plus another 29 every year—guaranteed

and

2-demonstrate that little things, done consistently over time, have exponential impact; this is one of those basic laws of life, a principle so simple—yet so powerful—that most people fail to even notice it.   

Both these points are aligned with this little reality:  What we do with the small, seemingly routine parts of our time, add up to major chunks of our life.

Here’s the proof:  A recent study found that on average people spend about an hour and 25 minutes each week in the bath or shower.  That comes down to 12 minutes a day.

Shower Meditation is enjoyable, and it seems harmless enough while we’re doing it.  After all, it’s only 12 minutes.  No, that’s not a lot of time… but OVER time its impact multiplies radically.

Consider this:  If you reduce your time in the shower just 5 minutes a day, that’s 1,820 minutes a year you’ll save, or 30.4 hours.  Hey, you’ll hardly be deprived (or dirty); that still gives you 42 hours every year in the shower, the equivalent of a whole work week.

If you do decide to trim up your shower time, just be careful the savings don’t get spent elsewhere.  In fact, you could get distracted after your shortened shower before you’re even out of the bathroom.  Example?  An even bigger household time-eater:  Toilet duty.  That takes up one hour and 40 minutes every week—more than 92 days over the course of a lifetime. 

So the unavoidable question is, why has the bathroom become such an attractive spot to hang out?  The study gave us that, too:  43% said it was the only place they could get time to themselves, and 39% cited bathroom time as a place to think. 

In a world where every moment is filled with some sort of activity, noise, interaction, or sound, turns out solitude and silence may still be our most revered commodities. 

See if you can find some, and enjoy it when you do.

Tags: meditation, perception, silence, Time Management

This entry was posted on Sunday, March 8th, 2009 at 11:07 am and is filed under Time Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.