An NPR segment the other day made a distinction I’d never heard of before: there are two types of people—those who live on “clock time” and those who live on “event time.”
(I don’t love “two types of people” claims, but the segment did clarify that we all have a little bit of both types in us.)
Clock time is living according to the time of day. Think of someone who eats lunch at noon regardless of hunger, because noon is when you eat lunch.
Event time is living according to feelings or intuition. Think of someone who eats only when hungry regardless of the time (or convenience).
Our world runs on clock time. Like the eight-hour workday, it’s another legacy of the Industrial Revolution, driven by the desire to coordinate activities like factory shifts and train timetables.
Calling the opposing framework “event time”—or really calling it anything at all!—feels a little silly. Event time is just experience without time. Clocks and ticks and tocks and minutes and hours are all human inventions, concepts that attempt to muzzle the ephemeral.
Clock time has its uses, but it’s not usually very enjoyable. (I once tried scheduling my workday into 15-minute increments, and it drove me bananas after three days.)
I’m tempted to reverse the statement and offer that “Event time is enjoyable, but it’s not very useful.”
But that’s not quite right.
Event time can be VERY useful—in that it can create immense value and meaning.
When do you lose track of time? When do you stop paying attention to the clocks that encircle us—the one on the wall or on your wrist or in your pocket?
I lose time talking to friends, hanging with my family, playing guitar, hiking, and when I’m in that magical state of flow while writing or working.
And yet, clock time is there lurking in the background, ready to admonish us. Clock time sees someone in event time and fails to see any of the real presence or meaning or connection. Clock time sees a rude, unproductive, and scattered person.
I think of enjoying a long, leisurely workday lunch, pulling out my phone and realizing that I’m 10 minutes into a 1 p.m. meeting. I rush away from lunch to show up sheepish and some 15 minutes late.
There should be space for both time types in life, but they are at odds.
I’ve even tried to play peacemaker in my workplace, suggesting that we schedule 25- and 50-minute meetings (rather than on the half hour and hour), to respect the too-common stand-off between the meeting that slips into event time and the impending meeting tapping its toes on clock time.
(There’s a setting in Outlook where you can add a “shorten meeting” option!)
Armed with this new time distinction, I plan to spend some time considering how meetings (and our calendared days!) can show more respect to event time instead of always living in fearful subjection to clock time.
Taylor Coe 