I’m an expert with time. It’s a useful skill in life to know what time it is at all times without a watch. This developed skill comes from running, at least that’s my guess. I know you’re already asking, “why would knowing what time it is without a watch be useful? There is always a clock available.” Fair point.
Pros of Timing
What’s one of the best feelings in the world? It’s waking up in the middle of the night not knowing what time it is. It’s only the best feeling in the world when you see that it’s 3:30am instead of 6:30am. In one scenario you get that 2 minutes of warmth and coziness before you fall asleep again and the other you know you’re fucked. When you know what the clock is without looking at it, there is no self inflicted trauma.
Another benefit of knowing the time is never being late. I’ll be the first to say that alcohol has caused me to be late on occasions so I’m not going to brag and say I’ve never been late. Under normal circumstances, I’m not showing up late to any event. Being late is under preparing and generally happens when you lose track of time. If you don’t lose track of time, you shouldn’t be late. I’d rather wait an hour at the airport than feel rushed going through the line. This isn’t hereditary either. JC is one of those guys who would try to get as close to the departure time as possible. It drives me mad. This is the classic case of preparing for the unknown. Having a cushion is a necessity.
Knowing how long traveling takes is also critical. How many people say, “I’ll be there in 5 minutes.” 10 minutes later, where is the person? My thinking follows these lines if I need to be at the golf course at 10am. If I want to wake up, run, eat breakfast, shower, dress, and travel 30 minutes, I better get up at 8am. 5 minutes to wake up and check my phone, 50 minutes to run, 12 to cook and eat breakfast, 8 to shower, 5 to dress. That leaves me 20 minutes to play 3 games of 3 minute blitz chess. That doesn’t vary if I want to be one time.
Does everyone do this? I have no idea. I only think it’s important because time is the most valuable asset on Earth and by far the one taken for granted the most. Unfortunately, it moves me into this type A personality of always needing to have some sort of schedule. I don’t take my time to go to Home Depot. It’s more like, “Home Depot takes 15 minutes.” If it takes longer, that’s ok, but it’s not like I’m sitting there wandering aisles for an hour because I can. I have a task and I do it. I should probably tone it back a bit, but at this point, it’s engrained. Who else uses time as a tool?
I’m hard after reading this post. I am the same way, time is black and white, you know basically how long it takes to get somewhere and plan for any inconveniences. I lose my mind when Not Suz (my wife, yes a real girl!) texts “leaving work, home in 10!”. Is she planning on setting a land speed record? I know it takes a minimum 15 minutes +/- 2 minutes. I’m getting heated just thinking about it.
There has been many an argument in the Not Gildea household because she hates when I’m pacing around waiting to leave because she’s running late. I now just lie to her about when we need to leave… and she is still late.
She’ll say “o, I’m ready in time, can we stop at Wawa?” and I say “no, be ready 5 minutes earlier next time”.
Time management is also a trait of a good salesperson. Not in the sense of rushing through a sale; there’s a pipeline that requires each prospect be chaperoned, and every prospect is unique; but rather you learn what (and who) to NOT waste time on.