Skip to main content

The value of time

This is a quote by Thomas Oxley in November 1830, from a book on Planispheres and astronomy. Oxley was a reknowned pioneer and spent a lifetime writing his book. Humanity's passion for saving time dates back centuries.. more recently, in the 1970's the internet and PCs were heralded as a means of saving us time and allowing us all to work less and accomplish more - has new technology lived up to this expectation? We certainly accomplish a lot more, although do we work less? If not, is it because in reality we all live to work?

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pathways

The other day I found a piece of paper that I'd created with my best friend a few years ago, and it reminded me of how simple things are when we want them to be. We travel along our path, experiencing this and that - hearing and seeing this and that, and along that pathway we make decisions. Those decisions keep us moving, either in the same direction or in another. Like travelling along a road, we sometimes know our way, we recognise the road - it's a well travelled road as they say - we know where we are going because we have been there before. At other times we see signposts and respond to what they are telling us - we react to them and alter our direction based on what they say. At other times, we register signposts to give us confidence that we are on the right track, we experience 'deja vu' or coincidences we just get that intuitive feeling that we are moving in exactly the right direction. I think this simple little topic is going into my book. Have a gre...

The ferry trip

A funny day. I have my three boys here for the holidays at the moment who are all under 11, and today we decided to get the ferry from Devonport to Auckland City to have lunch with my Partner, Ali. We drove to Devonport and I duly parked the car in the car park, tried to buy a ticket (the machine wasn't working), ran to get on the boat and off we went on the 11.15am ferry towards the Sky Tower and Downtown Auckland. A couple of hours later, well fed and watered, we arrived back at the ferry terminal in Auckland and waited for 20 minutes for the ferry back over the water (it's only a 15 minute trip). The ferry arrived, but this time it was a different type of boat and much busier. We hopped on, checking with the ferry man that the ferry was the right one and going to Devonport (as I had reservations), and off we went.. As we neared the Devonport ferry terminal, Sam, my eldest pipes up .. 'hey Dad, this doesn't look familiar at all. This isn't where we left the car...

Consistency

How consistent are you in your approach to life? Is consistency important? It is a question that I found myself asking recently when things weren't quite going as planned. How consistent we are in our approach to life and other people helps others to understand us, to understand what we enjoy, what we live for and why we are who we are. It also helps others to see how people can help one another along. Inconsistency can cause people to have a confused opinion of us, or even to find us threatening, self centered or untrustworthy. An inconsistent approach to how we handle and manage ourselves can put doubt in people's minds about our motives, goals and direction. So to enable us to convince those around us that we are good to know, and that we can help, requires a consistent image, or does it? A lack of consistency does not necessarily mean that someone is hard to trust or believe. It may mean that in actual fact, they are highly focused on helping you with your desires or n...