On Time: Finding Your Pace in a World Addicted to Fast

On Time: Finding Your Pace in a World Addicted to Fast
Catherine Blyth

Why has time sped up?

Why is there never enough?

How can you make it yours again?

On Time reveals why time sped up, why there never seems to be enough, and how to make it yours again.

We have more time than ever: each of us can expect a thousand months on this planet, if we’re lucky. Yet we feel time poor.

This is because our world is addicted to fast and we have become its servant. Instead of grasping the liberating potential of technology, many of us are stuck in a doomed race to outpace hurry.

Catherine Blyth combines cutting-edge research in neuroscience and psychology with stories ranging from Leonardo da Vince to Anna Wintour, Kant, and Keith Richards, to reveal timeless truths about humanity’s finest invention and how it shapes our lives.

Angry, witty and enlightening, On Time is a handbook for navigating a fast-forward world that asks the questions productivity guides ignore such as why time speeds up when you long for it to slow down, how to reset your body clock, and what hours suit which activities best.

So stop clock-watching and quit chasing white rabbits. Rediscover how time can be your servant.

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Copyright (#u1ad2347a-dfed-5dfa-ab66-b68d6c261695)

William Collins

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers

1 London Bridge Street

London SE1 9GF

www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com (http://www.WilliamCollinsBooks.com)

This eBook first published in Great Britain by William Collins in 2017

Copyright © Catherine Blyth 2017

Catherine Blyth asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988

‘Primavera’ by Robin Robertson, from Swithering © Robin Robertson 2006, reproduced with permission of Pan Macmillan via PLSclear; ‘This Is the First Thing’ from The Complete Poems by Philip Larkin, reproduced with permission of Faber and Faber Ltd.

A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, down-loaded, decompiled, reverse engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins.

Source ISBN: 9780008190002

Ebook Edition © June 2017 ISBN: 9780008189990

Version: 2017-11-03

Dedication (#u1ad2347a-dfed-5dfa-ab66-b68d6c261695)

For Saskia and Rafael

Epigraph (#u1ad2347a-dfed-5dfa-ab66-b68d6c261695)

‘I would have written a shorter letter,

but I didn’t have the time.’

Blaise Pascal, 4 December 1656

Contents

Cover (#u82710806-efa2-579f-8b5a-21c5b48e5221)

Title Page (#ulink_02115433-d8bb-56ac-a8cf-1776ce1ffca1)

Copyright (#ulink_a23c1332-3589-50a3-ad4c-1ccbf516b232)

Dedication (#ulink_c7a47544-b06f-56f1-81e4-667471ff8a63)

Epigraph (#ulink_842bbfe8-5cd6-5f2a-b09c-19cd8d9665f7)

Introduction: There is enough time (#ulink_e376baf9-3ce0-5224-b372-42ea4574596e)

THE TIME TEST (#ulink_c71ac5c4-7d06-597f-a5cf-d10e88fd668f)

Part One: How Time Went Crazy (#ulink_a93a06cb-3a6e-5669-bcb3-7d7b730181d6)

1 Is the World Spinning Faster? Why time feels less free (#ulink_2748a7dc-0fa6-56a5-bc69-6ac36f5ed185)

BUSY (#ulink_32530401-62b9-52e6-9ff0-dfab5c9c41f8)

Part Two: What is Time and Where Does it Go? (#ulink_62acdebc-152a-50a5-b087-4b841e004756)

2 How Time Gives Us the World: Why we invented it, how it reinvents us (#ulink_f897e16c-5892-51fe-b073-ccd668ca6a4d)

MENTAL TIME TRAVEL (#ulink_7a7c8f31-297c-56ed-aa28-8f0709fd3c46)

3 Slaves to the Beat: Why time changes speed and so do we (#litres_trial_promo)

WHAT NOW? A FLEETING BIOGRAPHY OF THE PRESENT (#litres_trial_promo)

4 It’s Not Working: How overload, digital distractions, productivity myths and time-poor thinking addict us to hurry (#litres_trial_promo)

WORK-LIFE BALANCE (#litres_trial_promo)