About Time

The American Time Use Survey from the Bureau of Labor Statistics reports the average amount of time Americans spend working, on activities in the home, and on sports and leisure.  The 2009 survey released this past summer shows that Americans with no children under 18 spend on average .42 hours each weekday reading and the same amount of time playing games or using the computer for leisure.  They also spend 2.91 hours watching TV per weekday.

If the recent change to Central Standard Time has time on your mind more than usual,  here are some timely bits and books on the subject from different disciplines:

The best day to visit a Social Security office is the day after Thanksgiving according to Buy Ketchup in May and Fly at Noon: A Guide to the Best Time to Buy This, Do That and Go There by Mark Di Vincenzo.

You can take the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory to discover which of these time perspectives is yours:  Past-negative, past-positive, present-fatalistic, present-hedonistic, future, or transcendental-future.  Find the inventory and read about the benefits and pitfalls of each perspective and how to optimize your time in The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time that will Change Your Life by Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D. and John Boyd, Ph.D.

According to Adrian C. Ott's The 24-Hour Customer: New Rules for Winning in a Time-Starved, Always-Connected Economy, the "prairie dog effect" happens when customers "pop up" to look around at competing services or products after a bad experience.  Her book tells how companies can capture customers' attention during these and other moments of their hurried days.

In the fall of 2003 science writer Chet Raymo hiked the prime meridian in Eastern England from Brighton through Greenwich to the North Sea.  In his book  Walking Zero: Discovering Cosmic Space and Time Along the Prime Meridian, he writes of his journey, of the measurement of space and time through history, and of scientific history represented by landmarks near the meridian, including Isaac Newton's birthplace, his chambers at Cambridge, and Darwin's house in Kent.