I’ve spent a lot of intimate time with my family in the last couple weeks as we’ve been on a trip together. Throughout this trip my mom continued a practice that echoes throughout my childhood and has influenced how I think about and navigate my time today.
Let’s flashback to get a better picture of this practice. It is the end of the school day and middle schooler Anna waits with her siblings to get picked up. As they hop into the car, squirming to adjust limbs and backpacks and lunch bags into the backseat, their mom asks a question.
“What did you do at school today?”
Thus begins the after-school group reflecting ritual (that, in our youthful angst, we might have referred to as an interrogation a time or two).
We launch into the highlights of our days, what was exciting or upsetting, the favorite thing we had for lunch or did at recess. As we drove home, made afternoon snacks, started in on our homework, and ran off to various after-school activities, this process of reflecting maintained a strong presence in our familial interactions.
The questions shifted to fit our various school involvements, struggles, and successes. Over the years they have shown up during phone calls while we were away in college, and have followed us to family vacations and trips.
“On a scale of one to ten how much did you like…?”
“Which was your favorite meal you had on the trip?”
“Of all the places we went, rank them in order of where you liked best.”
This has become a part of our vocabulary, and I find myself using this type of questioning not only with my family, but with myself, with my friends, with my colleagues, and with my coaching clients.
We configure time in past, present, and future. Dr.s Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd call this time orientation, and propose that we each develop a preference toward certain orientations.
Some people are very future-oriented, always thinking about how this step will lead to the next step and so on and so on. Future-oriented individuals may not focus as much on just being in their present or spending time reminiscing on their past because they experience time as valuable when they feel it is moving them forward.
This is a very simplified example of time orientations, and Zimbardo and Boyd offer more details, research, and resources that explore our time orientations and why it is beneficial to recognize how we have developed our understanding and valuation of time.
But, my point in bringing up the idea of time orientations is that my mom’s practice of group reflecting has motivated me to value time for reflection.
Though it is no longer a daily routine on the ride home from school with my siblings and mom, this process of thinking back on my day is a crucial part of my personal, academic, and professional existence.
I use this practice to consider the goals I had for the day – did I accomplish what I set out to complete? Were there conversations or projects that particularly stood out as satisfying or frustrating? On a scale of one to ten, how well did I work productively toward my goals?
It took me a while to recognize the connection between my daily reflection practice now and the group reflecting I’ve grown up with. Once I started to study time and think about how people and environments influence our time values, I began to consciously see these connections.
I find a lot of value in this particular connection with my time values because it has motivated a daily practice that benefits me, but also links me to a past positive time orientation. While I am not always in the mood to go through the group reflecting process, I see how it bonded my family, and how this has supported positive collective memories that we can look back on together.
Are there any habits or practices in your past that have influenced the ways you value time today? I’d love to hear from you if this resonates!