The answer to this question is a good indicator of how much control standardized time has over your life. For me, I would say the longest I go would be a few hours at most (or 7-8 hours if I’m sleeping, which doesn’t count). One of my nastiest and most unattractively annoying habits is my constant surveillance of the time. I even find myself subconsciously reaching into my pocket to check the time on my cell phone — and half the time, I don’t even remember what it is after I put my phone away! I think its some kind of bizarre ingrained obsessive-compulsive tic.

Since I started my new job (some details mentioned in the previous post), I’ve noticed that keeping track of the time has become even more important to me. Because it takes me so long to get home from NYC, I only have an hour or two to enjoy for myself at the end of each day. However, when I should be using these periods to concentrate on meaningful pursuits and the things that make me happy, I often find myself distracted by constant glances at the clock to see how much time I have left. Definitely not good! It seems as if I can’t enjoy my time if I know I don’t have a lot of it. When the minutes start to run down, I get cranky and irritated. The more I think about it, the more I’m realizing how harmful and strange this habit is…but hey, that’s what this blog is for.

If you’re in a similar situation, I want you to try an experiment with me. Tomorrow, I’m going to keep my cell phone turned off for the entire day, and I’m going to place a piece of electrical tape over the clock on my Windows taskbar. I’m going to try and make it the entire day without looking at the clock more than 5 times (seems reasonable, considering I look at it 50+ times under my current routine). I think it will be interesting to see how changing this daily habit affects me. I’m expecting good things. I urge you to join me, and share your experiences in the comments section.

How long do you ever go without knowing what time it is?