Everyday Life in Middletown
Spring, 2021 Directive: Organizing and Experiencing Time.
The purpose of this directive is to gain insight into how we experience time in everyday life.
It has become one of the clichés of life during the pandemic that time feels strange to us right now: individual days or weeks seem to stretch on interminably while months pass quickly; even our ability to keep track of the day of the week may seem compromised. We recognize (and hope) that the pandemic may be approaching its end, so we want to capture as much about this aspect of your experiences as we can.
With that in mind, we are interested in how you experience time in daily life, how you attempt to manage and organize it; when time seems short and compressed and when boredom or other factors make time seem to stretch out; and what sorts of thoughts or emotions are attached to these experiences.
Our question and our request is this:
How do you manage and experience time?
Some time during the week of April 1-8, pay attention to moments when you are aware of time; record these moments and what is happening—both in the world around you and in your thoughts and emotions—and submit one to two single-spaced pages describing as much as you can capture about your experience of time.
As always, we want to give you freedom to be creative and to adapt your contributions to EDLM in ways that work best for you. You can write this out as an essay, a set of disjointed observations, or any other way you like. You may choose to do a one-day diary, as we usually do, and to focus on your experience of time during one day. Or you may choose to record instances of time over the course of the week. Use the questions below as a guide to what information to include, but do not feel that you have to answer them completely or in order.
Your completed directives will be published anonymously in our on-line archive. While we will not publish your name or any personal information, it is up to you to decide how much or how little about yourself you want to reveal in your writing and to filter out personal information accordingly. We will review your directives for personal information and contact you if we have questions or concerns.
Please return your answer to us by April 13. Questions to consider in preparing your answer.
• How did the schedules of other people influence when or how you did things?
• How much flexibility do you have over the timing of your activities? When is punctuality important and when can you relax about being on time?
• How has the pandemic influenced your experience of time during this week?
• How much of your ordinary activities require planning in advance?
•When do/did you feel rushed and pressed for time? When do/did you feel the least time
pressure?
•When did time seem to slow down or speed up?
• How much time do you spend thinking about the past or the future? How much time do
you spend absorbed in the present moment?