The Real Reason Watching The Clock Sucks
How often do you find yourself watching the clock at work? Every few days when the dull tasks come along? Once a day when your energy starts to dip? Every minute of every day? Hopefully not – it sucks. Watching the clock brings down my mood and makes the day move by so slow that I think my watch battery died.
When I’m watching the clock, I’m completely restless. I am constantly moving in my chair, bouncing my legs and thinking of how great it will feel to be grabbing my coat and heading out of the office door. The worst part is when that time comes – it doesn’t feel great. In fact, it usually sucks.
It sucks because I realize how much of my life I am wasting, or at least wishing away.
The thought that usually follows this realization is, “I wish I could spend more time doing things that I truly love.” After thinking this a few times, I did the math. How much time do I have to dedicate to what I love? Not much. At least not a whole lot during the work week.
I try to sleep 7 hours a night. I’ve struggled with insomnia in the past, so now that I’m sleeping fairly well I take advantage of it. I wake up at 6:30 AM to get ready for work, and I leave just before 7:30 AM. A 30-minute commute to the office, followed by work for 9 hours, and another 30-minute commute home. That leaves me with 6 hours to have dinner, do some laundry, mow the grass, etc. It’s not hard to see how quickly mandatory tasks like these take over those 6 hours.
Yeah, it can be depressing at times but with some scheduling and prioritizing, it’s not too bad. What I find truly worrisome is how to balance all of that in the future, when I’m starting a family. At most, I’ll have 6 or so hours a day to split between mandatory tasks and spending time with my family – that sucks.
Maybe the next steps in my career should involve a more flexible schedule, the ability to work from home or ideally some form of passive income. Or maybe I just need to suck it up and stop watching the clock.
