We all know about using a timer to stay on task, but have you ever tried using a stopwatch?
I did recently, and the experience was enlightening.
It was a Saturday afternoon and my husband and daughter were headed to the park.
I wanted to join them, but I also wanted a clean bathroom and to get a load or two of laundry going. Houseplants needed watering. Mail needed sorting. There was a mountain of empty diaper boxes and other recycling ready to find its way out to the garage. The baseboards were fuzzy with dust. All bedding required a refresh.
I didn't have a set window of time, and besides that, I didn't want to race against the clock. So, a timer was out of the question.
But I wanted to stay accountable to myself. I wanted to know how many minutes (or hours!) I was actually using to tick through these tasks before I joined my family at the playground.
As an experiment, I activated the stopwatch feature on my smartphone and got to work.
Doing chores while periodically checking in on a stopwatch is fascinating!
(Well, it is if you're me. I realize I might be in a minority here.)
First of all, I was amazed at how quickly certain tasks were completed (a clean bathroom in under 15 minutes!)—but more than that, I was surprised that the mere fact of the activated stopwatch made me move through my list differently.
How quickly could I knock through the stuff that felt most pressing, the tasks that were just too cumbersome with a toddler underfoot?
What on my list could I let go of—or, at most, give a bare minimum of minutes to?
How much time on a gorgeous Saturday did I really want to spend inside, cleaning, while my family played without me?
Turns out, my limit was just shy of 90 minutes.
Yes, there was more to do. (There's always more to do.)
But using the stopwatch helped me to see that at about the 90-minute mark, I was ready to say GOOD ENOUGH to my list in order to use the rest of my afternoon differently.
This experience got me thinking that I'd like to sing the praises of both these humble tools—timer and stopwatch—in case you hadn't considered how you might use them to your advantage.
To be clear, I advocate for using them less to manage time and more to bring a level of consciousness to our experience of time.
What's the difference?
Well, I'm not really trying to leverage anything. I'm not trying to account for every minute of every day.
I'm simply observing how I tend to use my time and how long I take to do certain things (and how long I take to do certain things when I'm timing myself).
I'm also a big fan of creating containers for myself to do tasks that, if I'm not paying attention, might otherwise consume the entire day (see #2 in this post from the archive).
So, a timer and a stopwatch.
They can be used in the same situations, but tend to provoke different feelings. One or the other might be more useful to you.
A timer
As you know, a timer is a device that counts down from a specified time interval.
Great for pacing yourself, a timer comes in particularly handy when you want to restrict the minutes you spend doing something.
You can base your time interval on the amount of time that's available to you (e.g. you have 15 minutes before you need to be walking out the door), or you can choose to use a timer when you have seemingly unlimited time, but want to chunk it as a matter of strategy (e.g. you have an entire afternoon to clean the house, but you want to spend no more than 30 minutes on the kitchen before moving onto the next room).
A stopwatch
A stopwatch, on the other hand, is designed to measure the amount of time that elapses between its activation and deactivation.
Great for timing yourself, a stopwatch comes in particularly handy when you want to know how long it takes you to do something.
You can activate the stopwatch as a singular exercise (e.g. you want to see how long you actually require to complete your morning routine), or you can start and stop it throughout the day as a means of understanding "where the time goes" (e.g. you use it for each activity, to get a handle on where you spend your time and how much).
When to use one over the other
Simply put, a timer counts down and stopwatch counts up.
It's the difference between watching time disappear and watching it accrue.
Two different approaches to the same understanding, and yet, one might work better for you because it creates a particular relationship to time. A different feeling about the time you have and how you use it.
Are you motivated by steadily chipping away at a set amount of time? Do you enjoy working against a deadline, self-imposed or otherwise?
Or is it more useful for you to observe time as it accumulates? Does it help you to finish up something when you see how long you've already spent working at it?
Different situations call for different methods. Experiment with each and see if and how they change your relationship to the clock. Share your findings below.