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Become a Better Person While Waiting for the Microwave to Beep
53 ways to improve your life in a minute or less
People always talk about “saving time” in the same way they talk about “saving money,” like there’s some way to hold onto it and store it up for later.
But what if the “saving” part of saving time isn’t about holding on to time, but about rescuing it from the vast wasteland of The Island of Misfit Minutes?
I’ve noticed that every day I have moments when I’m waiting for a kid to finish practice, or waiting for an elevator, or yes, waiting for the microwave to beep, when little bits of time are falling off the cliff of my life, never to be recovered, never getting a chance to be put to good use to make me better.
[Now before you start trying to interrupt with a speech about the poisonous effects of ‘busy-ness’, let me say that I’ve read Cal Newport’s work too, and I recognize that it’s actually quite beneficial to our mental and emotional well-being to do absolutely nothing sometimes. But it’s all about balance. So hush for a minute.]
My main goal with saving these lost minutes is to avoid the mindlessness that often comes with them, and instead give them the respect they deserve by treating them intentionally (even if that means intentionally doing nothing).
