GP document - Mindful Timekeeping

Preface
A Tryst with timekeeping
The startpoint of this project is something
personal. I have perceived timekeeping as a
problem since time, I dont remember. I was
slow in almost everything I did from basic
activities like- walking, talking, bathing, eating,
reading, writing etc as a child. Though I
constantly got reminders to change it, it hardly
bothered me . It only struck to me as a problem
when I could not complete writing my exams in
the given time though I loved and enjoyed the
experience of writing the exam.
Thanks to one great teacher, I tackled this
problem. And tada, I was able to complete all
exams! She was a math teacher who focused
on speed. In her way of teaching she made her
students function from a state of urgency. Her
tactic was to set highly difficult to acheive
targets like finishing a 3 hour exam (a really
tough paper) in an hour and practicing 1000
integration sums in a month or two. She created
a sense of urgency in me which I probably had
never experienced before. I subconcsciously
found ways to get the maximum done with the
time I had. This helped me navigate through
the crucial years of school life relatively easily.
I did not realise when the skill of efficiently
dealing with time I had developed vanished.
The unease of timekeeping once again caught
up, when I started to pursue design education
for undergraduation. I do not know when and
how urgency created by deadlines and tasks
to be done made me feel timepressed and
became a reason for the mind to not
function impeding the creative work. This
battle against mind and time became habitual.
And the learned helplessness that came along
with it plagued me ever since. Struggle with
time keeping became a major contributor to
the generalised anxiety I experienced.
After graduation and during my time at NID, my
journey of self reflection and problem solving
from inside-out started. I reached out to
people to help me figure out this issue with
timekeeping. Many of them repeatedly told
that everyone has a pace that they are wired
to function with - which implied someone who
is slow is slow and all one can do is to find out
techniques that would help them work around
them. All of this still did not help me figure it
out.
So when I discovered the concept of
mindfulness, I decided to delve deep into
understanding both timekeeping and
mindfulness. And create something out of it.
The idea of mindful timekeeping
It was the book “The Science of Meditation” by
Daniel Goleman and Richard J Davidson that
introduced me to the concept of mindfulness. It
was introduced as a concept derived from
ancient buddhist meditation traditions that
finds application in psychotherapy as a
treatment for Post Traumatic Stress Disorder,
Chronic pain etc.
The book explains- “Mindfulness, part of an
ancient tradition, was not intented to be such
a cure; this method was only recently adapted
as a balm for our modern forms of angst. The
original aim embraced in some circles to this
day, focuses on a deep exploration of the mind
toward a profound alteration of our very being.
But the pragmatic application of meditation
appeal widely and do not go so deep.” It
explored and explained different levels of
application of the concept.
The concept of mindfulness and its
applications were so intriguing that I wanted to
explore possibilities of its application in
timekeeping.