Watch It!

Watch it!

During this time in isolation I have realised I have not worn a watch… And I’ve not really needed to. I seem to wake up naturally pretty much around 7am which for me constitutes a massive lay in of some two hours. Then my laptop reminds me at 7:45 I have 15 minutes before the first teleconference catch up of the day and that’s it. For each meeting or call during the day, I’m forewarned 15 minutes prior by a discrete ring.

Now, you might not think that all amounts to comment worthy of capturing on an isolation orientated blog. For me its an important double whammy of a realisation.

One of my vices or indulgences in life is watches. I won’t even tell you how many I own as you will talk about me. Let’s just say its too many. And yet being stuck here at home it’s not until the middle of my sixth week of lockdown (I was an early COVID-19 adopter) that I’ve even thought about wearing one.

And the second whammy of my time based double header is the realisation that I’m no longer a slave to the clock. No more bleary-eyed rude awakening at stupid o’clock to frantically dash to catch an equally ridiculously early, yet always late running train. No constant checking of my chosen wrist adornment of the day; trying to calculate how little time there is for me to reach the office. No more clock watching to gauge how much preparation time is available before each and every meeting or client call. And no more finger dial pointing backwards counting and calculating an office leave time to station arrival. And no more arriving at home and getting into bed just in time to get up and do it all over again.

Not only do I not know what time it is, I’m not even sure what date is it is… and I don’t really care. Living to the falsehood of a time driven day just adds pressure that doesn’t need to be there.

I complete the tasks I need to accomplish each day without the countdown clock ticking away at the back of my head. I don’t have the constant nagging distraction of working out travel times and potential arrivals but I do enjoy the unexpected freedom.

#watches #clockwatching #coronavirus #covid-19 #homeworking #lockdown