Book Review - Time Shifting by Stephan Rechtschaffen
Category Book Reviews
While I don't consider myself an "always busy, Type A" personality, there are many times when I wish I could be more "there in the moment" of whatever I was doing. I heard about the book Time Shifting: Creating More Time to Enjoy Your Life by Stephan Rechtschaffen, and thought it might be of assistance in helping me in that endeavor. I don't know that I got everything out of the book that the author intended, but I did pick up a few tips that should help...
Contents:
Part 1: Towards Time Freedom; Entrainment and the Rhythm of Life; Mental and Emotional Time; Stress and Anxiety; Expanding the Moment; Timeshifting; Exercises in Timeshifting
Part 2: Self; Relationships; Children; Work; Sports and Play; Health; Aging; Death and Dying; Planning Ahead; Society; The Future
A Final Word; Bibliography; Acknowledgments
Timeshifting isn't a new time management technique to allow you to eke out more minutes in a day. Instead, it's a mindset that allows you to get in tune with the rhythm of your life and surrounding events. Rather than trying to do more and more in every moment, you should step back, take a deep breath, and allow yourself to slow down and appreciate the moment for what it is. It's a shift from a time-based sense of life to a cycle-based lifestyle. In many cases, you find yourself in a particular situation either 1) replaying the past, or 2) anticipating the future. As such, there's no "now". Rechtschaffen asks you to put past and future out of your mind, and concentrate simply on "now" in whatever you're doing.
I had one of these moments recently on vacation at DisneyWorld. It was about 7 pm, and a major thunder and lightning storm was going on. I pulled up a chair and just watched... I then noticed a spider between the rails of our balcony, and he was spinning a web. I simply marveled at the movement and structure of what the spider was building, and how complex it all appears when finished. Before I knew it, I had spent nearly two hours just enjoying nature, oblivious to time and other activities. And it will likely be one of the memories of this vacation that doesn't fade...
I liked Part 1 of this book better than Part 2. Where Part 1 deals with the concepts of timeshifting in general, Part 2 gets into application of the concept in particular areas of your life. It seemed to get more ethereal and new-age'ish than what I was comfortable with, and I found myself not following quite as closely. You could say I was spending more time in the past and future than I was in the "now" of reading... :)
Generally, a useful concept to get more enjoyment out of the ordinary events of life. The author does a good job of explaining it all, and I can see where I will make some adjustments in what I do and how I do it...
While I don't consider myself an "always busy, Type A" personality, there are many times when I wish I could be more "there in the moment" of whatever I was doing. I heard about the book Time Shifting: Creating More Time to Enjoy Your Life by Stephan Rechtschaffen, and thought it might be of assistance in helping me in that endeavor. I don't know that I got everything out of the book that the author intended, but I did pick up a few tips that should help...
Contents:
Part 1: Towards Time Freedom; Entrainment and the Rhythm of Life; Mental and Emotional Time; Stress and Anxiety; Expanding the Moment; Timeshifting; Exercises in Timeshifting
Part 2: Self; Relationships; Children; Work; Sports and Play; Health; Aging; Death and Dying; Planning Ahead; Society; The Future
A Final Word; Bibliography; Acknowledgments
Timeshifting isn't a new time management technique to allow you to eke out more minutes in a day. Instead, it's a mindset that allows you to get in tune with the rhythm of your life and surrounding events. Rather than trying to do more and more in every moment, you should step back, take a deep breath, and allow yourself to slow down and appreciate the moment for what it is. It's a shift from a time-based sense of life to a cycle-based lifestyle. In many cases, you find yourself in a particular situation either 1) replaying the past, or 2) anticipating the future. As such, there's no "now". Rechtschaffen asks you to put past and future out of your mind, and concentrate simply on "now" in whatever you're doing.
I had one of these moments recently on vacation at DisneyWorld. It was about 7 pm, and a major thunder and lightning storm was going on. I pulled up a chair and just watched... I then noticed a spider between the rails of our balcony, and he was spinning a web. I simply marveled at the movement and structure of what the spider was building, and how complex it all appears when finished. Before I knew it, I had spent nearly two hours just enjoying nature, oblivious to time and other activities. And it will likely be one of the memories of this vacation that doesn't fade...
I liked Part 1 of this book better than Part 2. Where Part 1 deals with the concepts of timeshifting in general, Part 2 gets into application of the concept in particular areas of your life. It seemed to get more ethereal and new-age'ish than what I was comfortable with, and I found myself not following quite as closely. You could say I was spending more time in the past and future than I was in the "now" of reading... :)
Generally, a useful concept to get more enjoyment out of the ordinary events of life. The author does a good job of explaining it all, and I can see where I will make some adjustments in what I do and how I do it...
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Comments
Robert Persig had a great essay on this concept of living in the now by pacing yourself appropriately in his great book "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". He talked of the pace you set when hiking. Too slow and you're always looking for the end of the trail; too fast and you're out of breath and stressed about catching up. At just the right pace, you're just working on the step your taking and the things immediately at hand -- and the distance takes care of itself.
Posted by Andrew Pollack At 21:41:28 On 23/09/2006 | - Website - |