Primal Primer 14 (Mentality)
Ancient sapiens developed various methods for marking the passing of time; playing a crucial role organizing life amongst the chaos of antiquity. Although without clock or calendar, uses of natural cues and observations facilitated time tracking and season over long periods.
Daylight Cycles – Observing the movement of the sun across the sky and establishing patterns of shadow helps track the passage of time during the day. Day tracking allows for better planning of hunting, gathering, and resting more efficiently; while aiding in avoiding dangerous nighttime predators.
Lunar Cycles – Moon phases from new moon to full and back provides an easy way to track longer periods of time. Intuiting the 29.5 day moon cycle helps mark important events for best hunting, gathering, planting, and harvesting.
Seasonal / Celestial Events – Temperature changes corresponding with season guided hunting and gathering. Knowing the solstices and equinoxes (many proto megalithic structures marked these) provides additional depths for predicting longer and shorter days; important for planning efficiency and avoiding night predators.
Animal Patterns – Migration, mating season, and hibernation patterns are all markers of time; especially important when hunt planning and when deciding to shift resource acquisition to gathering / planting modalities.
Today we are chronically lost and distracted from time. We don’t know how much we have, the amount we waste, and where it is invested. We no longer pay much attention to the ancient cues, but instead drawn to action by alarms, reminders, and other technological proxies that guide our way.
Are You Wasting Time?
Time is on your side if you can account for it. Time management is an ancient form of accounting; and requires a ledger to understand the flow through below the bottom line. Constructing maps of time management provides insight into unintentional leakage. Time commuting or doing chores can be non-negotiable and regular obstacles of life. However, time spent on the phone scrolling and being coerced into product and consumption add up. Time can also be stolen by others without boundary, or where poor planning make their emergencies yours. Optimization starts with measurement.
~Cave Implementation~
Utilize your smart phones screen time measures to metric time spent without intent on mobile apps and social media. Analog notes and journal platforms also serve purpose (Know Thy Numbers also applies to time management). What gets measured gets managed.
If we spend most of our time in a non-negotiable manner at work, analyze the day thoroughly. Be singular in task orientation. Attack the most challenging work early and first while you are at your sharpest (and most efficient). Do not allow impromptu conference calls; schedule out time accordingly and with intent. Do not allow a phone call, txt message, or email distract from the task at hand; turn all notifications off. Follow a linear path in task completion when pragmatic. Small actions of efficiency and measurement help realign to being less pulled by time and more being in time.
Realign To Being Less Pulled By Time And More Being In Time
