My life is full of passions. Different things at different times, with different people in different places. The key factor that unites all of these activities and actually allows them to happen is time. And it's bloody hard to come by.
Being a young man in advertising means one thing for sure; you'll be working incredibly long hours. To take a Keynesian approach, in my life there's a massive glut of demand for minutes, hours & days and a heavily reduced flow of it. With time at such an inflated premium, it becomes important to make the most out of every last moment.
That means things like Tweeting from the loo, tapping out emails from the tube and texting from the meeting room (guilty) are more common then you'd think. A world where every second counts.
But time isn't just for doing. It's also for not doing. Time needs to be allocated to silence and contemplation. There are times when the chaotic maelstrom of media needs to be numbed, if only for a short while. Relinquish the iPhone, put down the TV remote and stop playing Angry Birds on the iPad.
While there is something to be said for jumping headlong into things, but stepping back and getting a sense of perspective is often fundamental to winning in the end.
A moment of calm is important, but there's a lot more to think about. Dunbar and his number claim you can only have so many meaningful social connections due to the physiological limitations of our minds.
That may be the case, but I'd say that what really stunts our ability to be social butterflies is how much time we can actually devote to our loved ones. In a typical week, try fitting in a date with your girlfriend, Sunday lunch with your Mum & Dad, some time with your nieces on a Saturday afternoon, playing football on Sunday morning, drinks through the week with work colleagues, dinner at the weekend with your friends and then you've still got your girlfriends friends & parents to slot in there somewhere. Not to mention the day job, which isn't so much confined solely to the day.
Even Fred the Shred would struggle to turn those numbers into something palatable.
Your time is more than just the gateway to your life passions, it's the keys to your life. It's in such short supply that allocating your time is a careful and much thought out exercise.
Saying that, there's a certain irony in spending a big chunk of your time, planning your time. Or worse, writing about it! Over-thinking and over-planning your time has it's own pitfalls. Removing the opportunity for spontaneity and serendipity will only serve to remove your passion for life. Finding a balance between planning, doing and not doing is what's required.
Of course though, only time will tell if I'm right or not.