Time-keeping addendum

[alexxkay]

There's a big difference between the way I view time, and the way most of the commenters on my previous post do. We are in agreement that a wrist watch lets you more easily check the time than a typical Phone/PDA. Where we disagree is whether that's a positive thing or not.

I stopped wearing a watch many years before PDAs and cell phones were around. Really, how often does one *need* to know what time it is? At least in my case, not very often. When I wore a watch, I wasted a lot of time timing things, and worrying about getting places "on time". After I stopped, I got a lot more relaxed. Now, I *can* tell what time it is, with a bit of effort, but that extra effort prevents me from falling back into my bad old habit of obssessively watching my watch.

Comments

[soon_lee]

I stopped wearing a wristwatch (too) when I realised I was obsessing about time. Of course, all that did was to sensitise me to locations of clocks. Over time I was able to wean myself & got less concerned about what the time was right-this-second.

These days, my cellphone has a clock but for most part, it only gets used so I know when to head for the bus-stop, an instance where I *need* to know the time. So far, no reversion to bad old habit.

[idonotlikepeas]

I need to check the time pretty frequently, because I'm bad at keeping track of what time it is. That's why I wear a watch.

I don't consider that an obsession; I have obligations to meet. And the easier it is for me to lose track of time, the easier it is to screw up those obligations.

[coyotedave.livejournal.com]

Sometimes it's fun to ask people what time it is immediately after they've checked a watch or clock. Often they can't tell you, because they're seeing relative time, rather than absolute time.

Not wearing a watch, I tend to look for clocks and listen when people talk about the time. More than once, somebody has asked the time, my eyes will roll up a little while I'm judging how long it's been since I've seen a clock, and I can give a pretty good estimate. Then they'll wonder if I'm looking up at a clock that they can't see.