Time Confetti

Technology no doubt has made our life extremely convenient in every possible way. It is one of the biggest boons that humans have received. Everything is just a click away. Be it online shopping, 10 minutes grocery delivery, or even getting your AC cleaned, a single tap with our fingers and consider it done. One can go on and on about the benefits of technology but that’s not what we are here to talk about.

We all have different ways of relaxing. It might be reading, walking, talking to a person (physically), sleeping, or many more different ways. But do we ease up our body and mind when we relax, or do we end up replying to just that one text from our friend, that work mail, or engaging ourselves in that funny controversial fight about pineapples on a pizza or not? As many benefits as we extract from these modern-day technologies, we end up giving it all away in form of reduced leisure time or a form of zero work-life balance.

You might ask, but what about the weekends or peaceful evening time that we reserve for ourselves? But again, do relax, because for today’s generation the idea of relaxing is, scrolling endlessly on Instagram or replying to texts (important or not). This is what we call ‘Confetti Time’ (sadly it has nothing to do with celebration or happy hours but instead it’s entirely different).

Let’s understand it more clearly.

Suppose you like to go for a walk when you wish to relax. You put on your earphones and decide to walk in the garden. While walking you realize you have some pending notifications from various apps and you need to check them. Afterward, you see a text from your dear friend who is asking you to take a quick survey for some important work that she is doing. It only takes you about 5 minutes to fill out the form.

All of these small, insignificant activities that you did means that your 1 hour of leisure activity got broken down into several small fragments leading to a reduction in the leisure time. As a result, you don’t enjoy or relax. Whenever we try to do more than one activity at a time, we end up not enjoying either. If we don’t give ourselves proper time to relax, our bodies and brains never get the chance to recharge and reset and we feel tired, anxious, unfulfilled, and on edge. 

Time confetti can also "be described as tiny chunks of time here and there, in the form of minutes and seconds, lost to non-productive multi-tasking".

Although, there are many people out there in the world who might consider this multi-tasking. With the ‘Hustle Culture’ going on and the ever-growing To-Do list, it might seem like a valid reason. But the mere fact that Human Beings are in fact Human Beings and not  machines and thus we require proper breaks and intervals to clear our minds and relieve stress, is a good enough reason to not consider this as multi-tasking.     

So, how do we put an end to time confetti, and instead put our well-being first?  

Some of the ways are-

TIME BLOCKING

For this people will need to block certain hours of the day for certain work while also restricting some of their habits (checking emails only 3 times a day), to keep a proper check. Time blocking can be done via multiple apps present on the internet that will help the end-user track most of how their time was spent.

PRITIORIZING AND NOT OVERBURDENING

Firstly, we all will need to prioritize our mental and physical health above all the things present. Also, understanding that overburdening yourself with work will not help you complete the work; rather it will stress you out. For example, most people block their free time with chores such as cleaning, cooking, catching up with unread notifications, and many more. We all need to understand that our leisure time is for relaxing and not clouding our minds with extra work.

TRACKING TIME CONFETTI

According to a study that was conducted, it was concluded that one week of time confetti would add up to 22 hours a week. So, to reduce this we can track our time confetti through various apps present and then later block our time for the same. For example, if you realize that you spend approximately spend 2 hours on time confetti, you can block certain hours of the day for all those miscellaneous work and this will help you to relax when you want to.

PUTTING YOUR PHONE AWAY

This is the oldest trick in the book, yet it always works. Putting your phone away will allow you to have peaceful leisure time without any distractions. Although it will be difficult at the first it gets better as time passes.

Whatever you choose to do, do it with presence and no interruptions, in doing so, you are allowing your mind to focus on the one thing and calm the adrenaline within the body, steering your mind and body away from the fight or flight instincts that you might have.             

The conversation needs to change so that we don’t perceive leisure time as something that is a nice to have but as an absolute necessity for our well-being.

-Akanksha Singh & Rijul Arora