Time: Quantity or Quality

The ancient Greeks conceptualized time as chronos and kyros. Chronos is clock time measured in seconds, minutes, hours, and is the root word for chronological and chronology. Kyros is timelessness, the here and now, synchronicity, carpe diem – seizing the moment. Chronos and kyros represent quantity and quality.

Isn’t that what our struggle with time is all about? The quantity is fixed and we are often unhappy with the quality or the way in which we are spending our time. While we agree on how long forty-five minutes is (chronos) it is experienced differently if you are sitting in the dentists chair as opposed to watching a fascinating movie (kyros).

How can we experience more kyros time and less chronos?  Doing one thing at a time, refusing to live an over-schedule life, and making time for the important people in our lives will help us to balance the quantity and the quality.

Excerpt from Lucy’s book, Learn to Manage Your Time.

Comments

[Bob]

I'll have to look more into the concept of "kyros." That's a new one for me. I recently blogged about this very thing at my site.

Thanks for another perspective!

[Ulrick]

Kyros is about about quality of life. Chronos is a given quantity of time sufficient to create that quality of life based on our choices. If one wants more kyros I would recommnend adopting the weekly cycle of six days (sun - fri) of work and one day (sat) of rest from all things secular. Kyros is value derived and chronos is value added.

[Liara Covert]

Its interesting to remind ourselves that time as we know it is a human invention. Ask yourself why people felt compelled to invent it? What we choose to do with time reflects how we value ourselves and whether or not we're attuned to how time management reflects our priorities. Examining how we use our time is a great way to raise self-awareness!

[Barbara]

I just started practicing Mindfulness meditation. It speaks to living in the moment.

[Karen]

Lucy, how well you put it! Doing one thing at a time (always a challenge for multi-tasking women & my biggest challenge), refusing to live an over-scheduled life (and I find this goes doubly for the kids in our lives - so many are so overscheduled they miss their childhood altogether), and making time for the important people in your life... (yes, without them, life is nothing). Your distinction between chronos and kyros really explains it so well.

[Maryanne]

I knew I was an ancient Greek in one of my former lives. I have always had an opposition with measurements of time. I find that for me, it goes against my nature, my own paticular cycle. Wouldn't it be interesting for us to spend approximately one year not keeping track of time in any way, shape or form? Anyone want to join me in this experiment?

[Lucy]

Thom,
Anyone who has experienced "being in the flow" as it relates to time - being totally absorbed and unaware of time passing - knows that this is a state to be encouraged and sought.

[Lucy]

Nancy,
Ah the illusive balance! I think of balance as an ideal and sometimes struggle to accept that it is an ongoing realigment of values and reality.

[Nancy]

Those Greeks really had it together. It's true that we live with a constant tension between these two dicotomies. Thanks for the reminder that balance is possible.

[Thom Quinn]

I've always thought it interesting that most books tackling the problem of Time Management seem to ignore ideas from within the 'philosophy of time, an academic tradition that has involved some of the most esteemed philosophers and scientists of Western civilization. Kudos for addressing this concept! The question "What Is Time?" has more than one answer; yet, it seems to most moderns that there are at least two, and possible more (such as biological time) measures of time: physical time (chronos) and psychology time (kyros). I would love to find a way to spend most of my time in the flow state that psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi has described to experience more kyros time and less chronos.

Thom Quinn