By the end of this week, living without clocks, it had got very frustrating. Asides from certain realisations which I will come to in a second, it is annoying and slightly wasteful (I think) to not know what time it is when trying to get certain things done.
The realisations:
Clock are everywhere - skype tells you what time it is, your phone tells you what time a text was sent, your answering machine tells you the time - all these clocks that I never usually notice (some of which are useful, or maybe all of which are useful but only some of the time)
Knowing the time can be useful - I knew this before I started, but it was only the debacle of Friday, where my partner had to tell me to leave to met a friend, then I thought I was going to be late, then ended up being early, when I thought I wish could just look at a clock. Asides from this one example, there was no other point in the week where I had to be somewhere at a certain time on my own accord, and that in itself is unrealistic. I also didn't have any trains to catch, meetings or work where I had to be somewhere at a certain point - not a usual situation.
Not knowing the time can be very disconcerting and liberating - not having a clock based structure to the day was a mixed bag - it was surreal and disconcerting at times, particularly as I obsess over time a lot, but it was also very freeing. I truly enjoyed not looking at the clock and comparing what time it was to what I thought I should have achieved by that point in the day. I was able to just get on with making and assess my day and my work objectively.
My reliance on clocks is , on the whole, unnecessary and seems often to cause me stress where it doesn't need to. I am questioning the need for a clock on my studio desk, on the wall in front of my desk at home, in my bathroom and so on. I feel that the visibility of time in my life is what causes me to focus on it and that is what I shall be reducing next.
My partner is away with work at some point over the summer, I may well try this experiment again then, without his alarm going off and pending arrival home from work as pointers in my day it may change things yet again.
