Dislike being bound by the clock? You might be an 'event-timer'
From then on, his voice had an undertone of resentment. That was not the first time I had been tardy on our dates – on numerous occasions he had to wait for me as I was still commuting when he had already arrived.
I prefer to go along with the flow and move onto a new activity only after completing a previous task, perceiving the 'end' in a more fluid manner than some other people.
In stark contrast, he abides strictly by the clock and when a meeting time is set, deviating from it is inconceivable in his mind.
Our inability to reconcile with how we approached time was one of the reasons we broke up, and that dinner was the last straw.
Looking back on that parting of the ways, I did some research and learnt about concepts that describe the differences in the ways that my ex-boyfriend and I structure our day.
I operate on what behavioural scientists call 'event time', referring to a system where individuals progress at their own internal rhythm, transitioning between tasks when they feel that the last one is finished.
As I was working on a project before our ill-fated meeting, I had hoped to make sure it was done well before heading out so that I would not have to think about it for the rest of the night and could enjoy the meal with him.
To me, this was more important than meeting up at the predetermined time, which of course backfired in the end.
This contrasts with 'clock-timers' who use external cues to guide the way they schedule their actions. If they allocate two hours to finish something, when the two hours have passed, the work is done.
While one way of managing time is not necessarily better than the other, the world operates based on the clock. After all, there are non-negotiable activities like flights and doctors' appointments. Would an entire planeload of passengers wait for you just because you are late?
Productivity and performance expert Charlene Ng said the dominance of clock-time culture reinforces a narrative of failure for anyone who doesn't fit in.
Ms Cindi Wirawan, a career coach, agreed. She said: 'Being an event-timer can be mentally challenging as you could be perceived as disorganised or even unproductive for failing to adhere to schedules.
'They may feel anxious or struggle with guilt whenever they can't keep up.'
However, event timers can push themselves to follow the clock out of necessity, punctually submitting work and respecting others' time in order to be empathetic, dependable friends. This does not mean it is their ideal or preferred method of planning their time.
Looking back at my time with my ex-boyfriend, I wondered if I had tried to adapt to his way of managing time, the relationship might have kept going.
So what are some time management strategies that event-timers can adopt to function better in a world where the clock is dominant?
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
CNA
6 hours ago
- CNA
Emotional toll of 'mankeeping': Why women feel strained as men's social circles shrink
Justin Lioi is a licensed clinical social worker in Brooklyn who specialises in therapy for men. When he sees a new client, one of the first things he asks is: Who can you talk to about what's going on in your life? Much of the time, Lioi said, his straight male clients tell him that they rarely open up to anyone but their girlfriends or wives. Their partners have become their unofficial therapists, he said, 'doing all the emotional labour.' That particular role now has a name: 'Mankeeping.' The term, coined by Angelica Puzio Ferrara, a postdoctoral fellow at Stanford University, has taken off online. It describes the work women do to meet the social and emotional needs of the men in their lives, from supporting their partners through daily challenges and inner turmoil, to encouraging them to meet up with their friends. 'What I have been seeing in my research is how women have been asked or expected to take on more work to be a central – if not the central – piece of a man's social support system,' Ferrara said, taking care to note that the dynamic isn't experienced by all couples. The concept has taken on a bit of a life of its own, with some articles going so far as to claim that mankeeping has 'ruined' dating and driven women to celibacy. We talked to Ferrara and other experts about what mankeeping is and isn't, and how to tell if it has seeped into your relationship. MANKEEPING ISN'T JUST EMOTIONAL INTIMACY Ferrara, who researches male friendship at Stanford's Clayman Institute for Gender Research, and Dylan Vergara, a research assistant, published a paper on mankeeping in 2024, after investigating why some men struggle to form close bonds – a growing and well-documented issue. In a 2021 survey, 15 per cent of men said they didn't have any close friends, up from 3 percent in 1990. The same report showed that in 1990, nearly half of young men said they would reach out to friends when facing a personal issue; two decades later, just over 20 percent said the same. Ferrara found that 'women tended to have all of these nodes of support they were going to for problems, whereas men were more likely to be going to just them,' she said. She sees 'mankeeping' as an important extension of the concept of 'kinkeeping' – the work of keeping families together that researchers have found tends to fall disproportionately on women. Eve Tilley-Colson, 37, was relieved to stumble upon the concept of 'mankeeping' on social media. Tilley-Colson, who lives in Los Angeles, is happy in her relationship with her boyfriend of nearly seven months, and described him as emotionally mature, funny and caring. They make a good team, but Tilley-Colson finds herself offering him a fair amount of social and emotional scaffolding, she said. They're both busy attorneys, but she tends to take charge of their social plans. Tilley-Colson has hung out with her boyfriend's close friends a handful of times; he hangs out with hers several times a week. Her role as the de facto social director of the relationship includes more serious concerns, too. 'When are we going to meet each other's parents? When are we going to go on our first vacation together?' she said. 'And if all of that onus is on me to kind of plan, then I also feel all of the responsibility if something goes wrong.' 'Mankeeping' put a word to her feelings of imbalance. 'I feel responsible for bringing the light to the relationship,' she said. Her partner, Glenn, 37, who agreed to speak to The New York Times but asked to use his first name only, said his gut reaction when his girlfriend first described mankeeping to him was that it seemed consistent with what he'd seen play out in many heterosexual relationships. He wondered, 'Okay, but is that bad?' 'We're in a moment where more women are speaking up about how drained they are by this dynamic,' said Justin Pere, who runs a therapy practice in Seattle that focuses on relationships and men's issues. Tilley-Colson, who is also a content creator, even made a post on TikTok about it. MALE SOCIAL DISCONNECTION IS A LARGER PROBLEM Rather than viewing 'mankeeping' as an internet-approved bit of therapy-speak used to dump on straight men, experts said they see it as a term that can help sound the alarm about the need for men to invest emotionally in friendships. 'The reality is, no one person can meet all of another's emotional needs,' said Tracy Dalgleish, a psychologist and couples therapist based in Ottawa. 'Men need those outlets as well. Men need social connection. Men need to be vulnerable with other men.' Pere said finding additional sources for emotional support does not require going from 'zero to 60,' adding that deepening friendships 'can happen in these smaller steps that are more manageable.' He might encourage a client to share something new about himself with a friend he already has, for instance. Or invite a friend he normally sees in only one context to do something new (a friendship-building concept sometimes referred to as 'repotting '). If his male clients are reluctant to put themselves out there in that way, he tells them that developing relationships is not about replacing their romantic relationship, but strengthening it by 'widening the emotional foundation underneath your life by investing in friendships.' But some of the challenges men face in making strong connections are societal, said Richard Reeves, president of the American Institute for Boys and Men, a think tank, and author of Of Boys And Men. Many of the institutions and spaces where men used to organically make friends have eroded, he said, like houses of worship, civic groups and even the simple workplace. 'Men used to be able to put themselves in these institutional settings and it kind of happened around them,' he added. 'That's just not happening so much anymore. Men do have to do more, be more assertive. I'm finding that even in my own life.' For Tilley-Colson and Glenn, talking about mankeeping explicitly has helped ease her burden. Glenn admitted that partly he thought his girlfriend just liked taking the reins socially. But when she explained how it felt to act as the default emotional manager in the relationship, he began to see how things could feel lopsided, he said. 'I've put more effort in to try and even things out,' he said.
CNA
4 days ago
- CNA
Titan submersible's ‘inadequate design' a primary factor in implosion: US coast guard
WASHINGTON: A United States Coast Guard investigative board concluded Tuesday (Aug 5) that the "inadequate design" of the Titan submersible was a primary contributing factor in its implosion in 2023 that left five people dead. The Titan was on a tourist expedition to the wreckage of the Titanic - a British passenger liner that sank in 1912, killing at least 1,500 on board - when it lost contact with its support vessel during descent. Its remains were found four days later, littering the seabed about 488m from the bow of the Titanic wreck. The implosion was preventable, the chair of the US Coast Guard Marine Board of Investigation, Jason Neubauer, said as a 300-page report was released following a two-year probe. "There is a need for stronger oversight and clear options for operators who are exploring new concepts outside of the existing regulatory framework," he said in a statement. A media spokesperson at OceanGate, the US-based company that managed the tourist submersible and suspended all operations after the incident, was not immediately available for comment. The board determined that the primary contributing factors were OceanGate's "inadequate design, certification, maintenance and inspection process for the Titan". It also cited "a toxic workplace culture at OceanGate", an inadequate regulatory framework for submersibles and other novel vessels, and an ineffective whistleblower process. The report added "for several years preceding the incident, OceanGate leveraged intimidation tactics, allowances for scientific operations, and the company's favourable reputation to evade regulatory scrutiny". The board found that OceanGate failed to investigate and address known hull anomalies following its 2022 Titanic expedition. It said data from Titan's real-time monitoring system should have been analysed and acted on during that expedition.
Independent Singapore
4 days ago
- Independent Singapore
Man says ex who never offered to split the bill texted him out of nowhere, then disappeared again
SINGAPORE: A man was left feeling confused and emotionally unsettled after a woman he had parted ways with two months ago suddenly reached out to ask how he was doing, only to delete the entire conversation shortly after. On Reddit, the man, who had been seeing the woman despite their two-year age gap, explained that he initially ended things with her due to several red flags, one of which was the imbalance in financial contributions during their dates. 'I am an NUS uni student; she is working full-time, [but] she never even offered to split because 'that's what her partner usually does,' he wrote. 'Decided that maybe she isn't so suitable for me, and had the thought of parting ways. In the end, due to non-financial reasons, we decided to part ways, and I thought that was it.' However, the silence between them was unexpectedly broken two weeks ago when she sent him a message out of the blue, asking how he had been. 'I thought we cut each other off already? I felt so messed up, so I asked her what she wanted. She said she wanted to 'know how I am doing,' but then I said I am doing fine. She then proceeded to delete the Telegram chat from both sides.' Seeking clarity, he asked fellow Reddit users: 'To anyone who has faced this/did this, why did this happen? I am disturbed and disoriented. I am genuinely curious because, in my knowledge, cutting off means not seeing or talking to each other ever again, even through text.' 'I don't think it means she wants to get back with you, so don't be too disoriented.' The man's post sparked a flurry of responses from netizens, many of whom speculated that the woman might have been feeling nostalgic, lonely, or even regretful. One explained, 'I think it was just a moment of weakness on her side. She felt lonely, missed you probably, and couldn't help but text you. Knowing you would probably reply, and maybe start pining for her again, would assuage her lonely heart for a while. I don't think it means she wants to get back with you, so don't be too disoriented.' Another chimed in, 'I don't think you're wrong to be confused because the other person is definitely sending mixed signals. As to why she did this, who knows? Maybe she was curious. Maybe she was lonely. Maybe she was drunk. Maybe she just wanted to know if you're still a valid backup. Point being that no one (but her) knows, and it isn't YOUR job to find out, either. Your job is to take care of yourself, since you're still emotionally vulnerable (as seen from your post).' Some also advised the man to simply ignore her, with one commenting,'Life is not so black and white. Maybe there is something she misses about you. Something that makes her crave for you. Just ignore her; if you're incompatible, you're incompatible.' Why did your ex suddenly reach out and then disappear? According to professional relationship coach Chris Seiter, this confusing behaviour is often driven by something called the 'nostalgia principle.' This happens when your ex starts thinking about the good times you shared and feels a strong urge to relive those moments. That feeling pushes them to send a message or reach out to you. See also Are you suddenly interested in the Supreme Court? You're not alone After making contact, however, they may begin to feel unsure about their decision. They might start to worry about what reconnecting could mean. Questions like 'Am I doing the right thing?' or 'Will I lose my independence again?' can cause them to panic or pull away. This often leads to them disappearing just as quickly as they showed up. Read also: 'You own this place ah?' — Man says elderly uncle snapped after he asked him to lower loud phone video at West Coast Plaza
