Good morning Everyone!
Medieval Clock Tower
Photo From Wikimedia Commons
By Frank Kovalcheck
It’s morning and I’ve successfully sent Kayla off to school and am sitting down for my usual spot of blogging before I head off to work, something I enjoy, but I’m keeping a close eye on the clock as I do so.
Once upon a time, a day was not divided up into hours, but simply day time and night time. People understood that when the sun was up, you would do whatever hunting and gathering needed to be done, and when the sun was down you slept. Then we invented agriculture and the seasons came into play – you had to at least divide time up enough so that you knew when to plant, water, harvest and store.
That schedule was simply enough – you still got up when you needed to get up and went to sleep when it was dark – but somewhere along the line, someone (and I really don’t know who was present at that vote, because it wasn’t me) decided that we needed to divide the day up further. I can just imagine that conversation!
Timekeeper: Hey, dude, I just thought of something.
Friend: What’s that?
TK: Well, you know how we get up when it’s light and we do some things and then we go to bed when it’s dark?
Friend: Yeah, what about it?
TK: Why don’t we invent something called a schedule?
Friend: What’s that?
TK: It’s a way of being sure that you are doing what you need to do when it needs to be done.
Friend: That makes no sense, dude. We’re already doing that! We plant when we need to plant and harvest when we need to harvest – oh, and we milk the darn cows every blessed day at day break because they make such a fuss otherwise.
TK: Yes, but wouldn’t you feel better if you knew, when you walked in to milk the cows, that you were getting up at something called 4 a.m. rather than just day break?
Friend: Not really. What’s 4 a.m.?
TK: The crack of dawn.
Friend: It sounds the same to me.
TK: You’re missing the point. If you know that you have to milk the cows at 4 a.m. and will be finished by 6 a.m., you then can plan what you are going to do with the rest of your day.
Friend: I do that already.
TK: Yes, but you will know exactly how much time you have left to do everything so that you can worry about not getting it all done on time.
Friend: Still not feeling it, TK. Sorry.
TK: You don’t understand. Suppose the opposite happens and you get done way early, say by noon.
Friend: What’s noon?
TK: Lunch time.
Friend: Ok. What then?
TK: Then you can figure out how much of the day you have left and load yourself up with lots of more stuff to do. That’s called “productivity.”
Friend: Why wouldn’t I just want to go fishing or read a papyrus scroll somewhere?
TK: I didn’t know you could read!
Friend: That’s irrelevant. Answer my question.
TK: Well, by loading yourself up with lots more stuff to do, you’ll get more done.
Friend: It sounds to me like I’ll get a lot more not done, too.
TK: That’s the beauty of it! Not only do you get more done, you get to worry a lot more about what hasn’t been done and boast that you got more done than someone else.
Friend: I think your idea needs some work, man. I’m off to the lake.
TK: How about if I add in a big timekeeper tower in the center of the town square with a lot of cute marching figures whenever the gong chimes out the hour?
Friend: Now you’re talking…..
Apostles on the Prague Astronomical Clock
from Wikipedia
Have a great day!
Nancy
Tales from the Mom-Side 