How to Make Time to Make Things

We live our lives on different clocks — biological, cultural, personal, and more. There are things we have to do and things we want to do, and often we don’t allow for enough qualitative time where we aren’t ticking off minutes but creating moments of experience. However, we can introduce intentional creative time into our lives by being conscious of which clock we’re operating on. Finding the Rhythm In 1938, Professor Nathaniel Kleitman and research assistant Bruce Richardson performed a daring and dedicated science experiment. Packing not much more than food, water, two hospital beds, and measuring equipment, they ventured into Mammoth Cave in central Kentucky — one of the deepest, darkest cave systems in the world. A number of hideaways there are unreachable by natural light. The pair planned to stay there for six weeks, testing out a hypothesis that the biological clock of set sleeping and waking times observed in humans (and other living beings) is innate and not coordinated by exposure to natural sunlight. They lasted 32 days in complete darkness before emerging, bringing with them a discovery that massively influenced the canon of physiological knowledge from then on: Humans perform an endogenous regime of biological timekeeping almost to the minute every day regardless of the luminosity of their surroundings. In the cave, the pair had fallen into a predictable, repeated pattern of around nine hours of sleep followed by around 15 hours of waking consciousness — a daily pattern shared by billions of other people around the world (adding up to about 24 hours and 15 minutes for each cycle) known as the circadian rhythm. Sleep research later critically added to this revelation. While humans seem to have circadian rhythms that last the same amount of time regardless of the presence of light, we also seem to run them at different times. There are a variety of chronotypes — certain people have sleeping and waking preferences that make them more like night owls or morning larks, and it all appears to be driven by genetics, even if cultural and working practices fight hard against them. Time Sometimes Acts Differently Many people have experienced time feeling like it has slowed down or sped up during certain activities. This is because the complexity involved in our sensory systems wires us to be perpetually fooled about time. The brain is a capricious pilot, some might say. (Spend some quality time reading neuroscientist David Eagleman’s essay “Brain Time” for stories of such marvels.) Psychologists have even broken down classifications of people based on how time feels to them that involve personality type, genetics, brain chemistry, culture, and other markers. The real clashes come when a polychron meets a monochron. Polychrons see time as flowing infinitely; start and end times are hazy, and schedules are unstructured. Monochrons, however, see time in discrete units to be shuffled around neatly and diligently. We surely have all seen these types at meetings where there’s a person who’s always studiously on time and a person who’s always rushing in late. The Quality of Time Matters Clearly within the observable reality of quantifiable time, time itself changes—it expands and contracts depending on who is experiencing it. But how do shared rhythms and the speed at which we feel time relate to creativity? There is another factor at play: the quality of time. This is something the ancient Greeks realized and gave names to with the chronological sense of time called “chronos” and a qualitative sense of it called “kairos.” These are described aptly by McKinley Valentine: The ancient Greeks had two words for time, and kairos was the second. … Where chronos is quantitative, kairos is qualitative. It measures moments, not seconds. Further, it refers to the right moment, the opportune moment. The perfect moment. The world takes a breath, and in the pause before it exhales, fates can be changed. Kairos is sacred time, when the vibrancy of life is turned up and long-lasting memories are formed. As Valentine says, “There is a sense of abundance, that the universe is full of good things, there for the plucking. … It’s how a traveler can miss their flight, get food poisoning, lose their passport and still talk about the trip with shining eyes and flushed cheeks. They’re remembering kairos.” How often, though, are we able to live within kairos time? In a world of safe spaces and sanitized entertainment, we become shackled by the homogenization of experience. Airbnb apartments start to look the same from Groningen to Guangzhou, and online media platforms turn aesthetic trends from archipelagoes of distinction to a Pangaea of conformity. Risk is assessed and mostly avoided; we are encouraged to box things in, tick them off, and file them away. There’s one powerful way to avoid the trap of monotonous monochronicity: Wind your clock to creative time. The act of creation, in the same way kairos operates, involves occupying a kind of alternative temporal dimension. It involves taking risks — having ideas and setting them free. How Time Flows When Creating Writing in The Art of Thought in 1926, English psychologist Graham Wallas proposed that the creative process involves four stages: Preparation — identifying and defining the problem that needs to be solved Incubation — processing information on an unconscious or subconscious level Illumination — switching on the light bulb; the moment where all becomes clear Verification — testing the idea for its utility in solving the problem Note that this is a creative process rather than the creative process. There are various other models; this one is more objective-focused and linear than geared for divergent thinking or artistic output. In this model, verification is an important endpoint; the results have to be tested for an end goal. You could reasonably map this process out onto a calendar, chronos-style. But let’s take a step back. The incubation stage of this model doesn’t set any parameters for time. It involves a period of rest, pausing to let the underbelly of the conscious mind work on making disparate connections, trying out theories, and seeing what sticks. And psychologist Mark Runco argues in Creativity: Theories and Themes that the verification stage is also vital because “it allows the creative individual to test and tinker.” It can be hard to schedule time in daily life to foster the creativity in these steps — but not impossible. And what happens among the flicking of the metaphorical switch, the charge flowing through an invisible circuit, and the lightbulb lighting up? Serendipity. Coaxing Serendipity You might think of it as being lucky. Lucky people, it seems, are blessed by the vagaries of fortune on the regular. Some people find an extra leaf on their clover. Some hit a hole-in-one on their first swing. Some wake up one day to find they’ve won millions in a lottery. But the commonality is that lucky people put themselves in a position to get lucky more often. And it works the other way too; consider someone who’s “unlucky in love.” Haven’t their choices to pursue the same partner archetypes time after time locked them squarely in the world of bad luck? Serendipity is a close relation to luck but not exactly the same. Luck has the impression of being positive or negative. Serendipity, though, is the wide-angle percolation of beneficial luck — a combination of fortunate events that may seem borne out of nowhere but really entail multiple collisions of chance over time to lead up to a singular, glorious punctuation. The serendipitous birth of ideas is made possible with creative time. How Do We Get More Creative Time? Despite the endless philosophical angles we can explore in the field of time perception, the answers to such a question are really quite simple. 1. Allow for downtime Of course — the opposite of uptime. We work, and we rest. And while we might think of them in opposition, Alex Soojung-Kim Pang observes in his book Rest how both are necessary for creativity: We misunderstand the relationship between work and rest. Work and rest are not polar opposites… Rest is not work’s adversary. Rest is work’s partner. They complement and complete each other. Some of history’s most creative people, people whose achievements in art and science and literature are legendary, took rest very seriously. They found that in order to realise their ambitions, to do the kind of work they wanted to do, they needed rest. The right kinds of rest would restore their energy while allowing their muse, that mysterious part of their minds that helps drive the creative process, to keep going. Spend some time doing nothing. Without the daily mess of constant stimulation and information input, the pressure dissipates, and our ideas are able to stretch their legs and come to life. Taking a walk has long been a part of the daily rituals of history’s greatest thinkers. And taking a shower or playing with a pet offers the same benefits of winding down primary consciousness and letting ideas wander freely. More advanced techniques are sensory deprivation tanks, going on wilderness retreats, or getting on a train with no particular destination. But any time away from work is time we can coax serendipity to the surface. 2. Hack your calendar Being more mindful of time isn’t particularly about fearing the ticking clock, trying desperately to fight its unstoppable march with increased productivity. It’s about being conscious of how time is being spent and showing it enough respect. That said, we can most certainly codify creative time. Even if you don’t schedule your entire week into blocks like a productivity guru, you can dedicate an hour (or more or less) on your calendar to creative thinking, purposefully seeking inspiration, aimless doodling, or just doing something differently. It is that simple. Reclaim your day and make it official: “Friday, 2:30 p.m. — stare at the sky.” 3. Question yourself Finally, ask yourself some evaluative questions like these: Am I being inspired? Am I doing things differently? Am I reading books or writing them? Am I playing games or designing them? Am I getting closer to my goal or further away? Stepping back like this allows us to break out of routine, reconsider our paths, and see whether our precious chronos is being spent in a way that brings about our unique kairos. Think about which clock you’re living on, and which calendar you’re building your schedule around. Rest and step back to let ideas seep through to consciousness. Coax serendipity. Question your agenda once in a while. Getting more of that valuable creative time takes effort, but it can be done. You just have to make time for making things.

The Mindset That Makes You Better With Money

It’s easy to feel like you don’t have much control over money, at least when it comes to the big-picture things. Sure, you’d love a larger income, but your salary is what it is, and you can only negotiate so much. Or you’d like cheaper rent, but you live in a city where demand for housing is high. If anything, most of us feel the exact opposite of control when it comes to money: Our day-to-day lives are forever dictated by our financial ones. Yet research suggests that a sense of control is critical to your financial well-being. In a 2014 study out of Stanford, researchers found that simply feeling more powerful led people to make better saving decisions. To get study participants in the right mindset, researchers put some subjects in a room where they sat in a tall chair (these people were dubbed the “leaders”) and others in a different room where the only seating option was a low ottoman (these were the “followers”). The researchers then asked both groups how much money they wanted to save. The leaders were willing to save between 34 and 42 percent of their income, while the followers saved only between 13 and 18 percent of theirs. No, I’m not suggesting that a taller chair is the solution to your financial woes. But the study authors hypothesized that when people feel powerful, they want to keep that feeling, which drives them to make decisions that maintain their sense of control. A spending plan is exactly like a budget but with that one crucial difference: It’s supporting something that matters to you. “Because we can’t control the world, what we need to focus on is: What is it in our behavior, and our financial behavior specifically, that we have the power to change?” says financial therapist Amanda Clayman. The following money moves can help you find that power. They’re simple steps, but they’ll make a big difference to your psyche — and, eventually, to your bank account. Make Small Choices The simple act of saving money, no matter the amount, can empower and motivate you in ways you might not expect. Like Clayman says, you don’t have much control over the economy or the job market; to avoid feeling defeated, give yourself the opportunity to make a choice about something you do have control over. Choosing to save is one small way you can have some say in your financial life. Just ask Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit. In his latest book, Smarter, Faster, Better, Duhigg writes, “Motivation is triggered by making choices that demonstrate to ourselves that we are in control. The specific choice we make matters less than the assertion of control.” In other words, it’s not really about the five bucks you save or the extra $25 you decide to throw at your debt. It’s the fact that you’re making the decision in the first place. “It’s this feeling of self-determination that gets us going,” Duhigg explains. Ditch Your Budget for a Spending Plan Diets are hard because they’re restrictive by design. When you tell yourself you can’t eat potato chips anymore, the only thing you want is a potato chip. And maybe some french fries. Oh, and a milkshake. Yes, I’ll have whipped cream on that. Budgets present the same problem. Most people start a budget because it feels like the responsible, adult thing to do. But when your friends ask if you want to drop $250 to go to the Beyoncé concert, that commitment to being responsible goes out the window. To fix this problem, many experts recommend a spending plan instead of a budget. With a spending plan, you come up with a specific financial goal, then budget based on reaching that goal. Let’s say your goal is to save $2,000 for a trip to New York. Your entire financial life aims to support that visit to Momofuku and those Broadway tickets and whatever else you plan to do on your NYC adventure. A spending plan is exactly like a budget but with that one crucial difference: It’s supporting something that matters to you. It’s not easy to say no to Beyoncé, but it’s a lot easier when you have a solid reason for doing so. A spending plan gives you that reason. (And if it makes you feel more empowered, I think Beyoncé would approve.) Come Up with a Concrete Goal for Your Spending Plan “When I work with clients, the way I describe it is that we’re going to simultaneously work on the what and the how,” Clayman says. “So, the whatis: Rubber meets the road, what is it that you’re trying to do or achieve? And the how is: How do we have a healthy process around the work that we’re doing to reach the goal?” In other words, before you figure out how to get better at managing your money, figure out what you want to use your money for in the first place. Your what doesn’t have to be glamorous. Maybe you’re just trying to pay off a $10,000 student loan because you’re tired of carrying that weight. In that case, you’re paying to feel liberated, and that’s worth the effort. Make Your Goal SMART A goal is also much easier to achieve when you have a plan for it. An easy framework for turning your goal into a plan is the SMART goal criteria, a framework for describing goals that are Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-bound. Here’s what a SMART financial goal might look like. Specific: I need to pay off my $10,000 student loan. Measurable: I will keep track of my progress through my online student loan account. Achievable: This is achievable in three years if I cut back on my restaurant spending. Relevant: This is relevant because I want to free up my income to spend on things that matter to me. Time-bound: By saving $277 a month, I will pay off this loan in 2021. Boom, now you have a plan for that seemingly insurmountable goal of paying off your student debt. It still won’t be easy, but this at least gives you a blueprint for reaching that finish line. “I would also build in markers, like subgoals,” Clayman says. “Depending on whatever the size of your debt is, find a meaningful chunk of that and give yourself a reward or even an effort vacation as you meet those markers along the way.” For example, maybe you reward yourself when you pay off $1,000 of that loan. It doesn’t have to be anything expensive or luxurious — that would defeat the purpose. But you could treat yourself to something as simple as a long bath, or a pack of gummy bears, or a visit to your local museum. The important thing is to acknowledge those milestones, which helps you stay motivated for the long haul and focused on the process. Write Down Your First Money Memory Depending on the person, money can represent any number of emotionally charged concepts: fear, greed, scarcity, wealth, opportunity, anger. “The symbolic property of money is something that starts to form when we’re young,” Clayman says. “And that’s because children are programmed to be sensitive to the emotions of their caregivers.” If your parents fought about it often, for instance, money might be something you’ve learned to avoid dealing with because you think of it as something that causes trouble. You’d rather not deal with the turmoil, so you ignore your budget, spend without much thought, and never bother asking for a raise. The way we think about money as adults always echoes some of our younger experiences with it, Clayman says, “because the first memory of money is going to have a strong emotional component to it.” Take a moment to think about your first money memory. Think about the emotions surrounding that memory and how they might contribute to some of your current habits. (You might find it helpful to write it down.) This exercise can help you exert a little more power over your financial behavior; after all, understanding a habit is the first step to changing it. Stop Automating Everything One final tip for feeling more in control of your money: Engage with it more regularly. It’s so easy to automate every aspect of our financial lives. We pay our bills automatically. We save our credit card information to our favorite websites so we don’t have to type in the numbers. But the hidden cost of this convenience is that we often don’t give those transactions, or our finances in general, much thought. “I think if most of us are trying to get to a more grounded and financially healthy place, having regular contact with our money is the best place to start,” Clayman says. Unlink those credit cards. Check in on your budget every day. Write down your expenses. If you really want to commit, try cash-only spending — there’s some evidence, like this 2012 study published in the Journal of Consumer Research, that people spend less when they pay with cash. What works for one person might not work well for you. Maybe you end up spending more when you pay with cash. Maybe a daily budget check-in just discourages you, and you’d rather do it weekly. There are some basic financial rules that are universal, but the thing about personal finance is: It’s personal. To feel financially empowered, the first step is figuring out what works for you.