We have cars to expedite travel, video conferencing to facilitate remote meetings, microwaves to speed food preparation, computers to process information, the internet to provide immediate answers, and smartphones to make answers portable and immediate. So as a small business owner, why are you feeling more time poor than ever? The good news is that it’s not just you, it’s your customers too.

Time and all that it represents is on my mind because I recently watched a “busy families” focus group through the two-way mirror. Given the segment, it was no surprise that claims of being “time poor” came up as the short-hand label for the state in which they found themselves, so this got me thinking about why we become victims to time. It is as if time is controlling us and we are left powerless to change. We may own our businesses, but we don’t own our time.

Time seems to be one of the most important concepts of the modern age, at least in developed nations, and yet we often do not reconsider what time means. Until now. Enter two product concepts that caught my eye because both are reimaginings of the very representation of time – the clock.

Progress

The first is the Progress Clock by Brett M Westervelt, which uses the behavioural principle of loss aversion as a call to action. Imagine a clock that looks like a small photo frame you might have on a bookshelf, with three bars running horizontally from left to right. The bars measure “this minute”, “this hour” and “this day” with a vivid blue line marching across the clock face.

As Brett explains, “Many clocks are circular, conveying the sense that time starts over, or completely digital, giving the current time but not much more. Time is in fact fleeting, and once this day (hour, minute) is gone, it’s gone. The Progress Clock is an attempt to help the user not so much focus on the exact time, but on how much time is left; with the hope of inspiring people to take advantage of any given moment.”

The clock is effectively asking: are you making the most of each moment every day? Unlike an hourglass where time is eroded as sand buckles to the relentlessness of gravity, this clock forces you to consider what you will do with the time you have left in this unique and precious day. Confronting, isn’t it?

The Present

The other is a clock called “The Present” that takes 12 months to complete its cycle. This circular clock looks a bit like the underside of a CD, with only a graduated colour spectrum to delineate segments of time which is this case are annual seasons.

Designed by creative firm m ss ng p eces to keep people in the present by focusing on seasons rather than moments, Fast Company suggests that “…our obsession with small increments of time often keeps us from focusing on the bigger picture. The clock takes a year to complete a single cycle... Different colours represent changes in seasons – the winter solstice (top) is marked by pure white, pure green represents the shift into spring, pure yellow marks sun, and red marks the autumn equinox.”

In a sense, The Present deliberately disorients our convention of measuring time in seconds, minutes and hours and as a result racing to complete tasks that are able to be measured in such small units, to instead concentrate on creating experiences of real and substantial value.

So we have two different reimaginings of the measurement of time, both with the aim of helping us make more of now. The Progress Clock confronts us with how much time is left on the clock at this moment, and The Present focuses us on now in the context of the cycle of life.

Behavioural principles

Both clocks are being used to explore the behavioural principles of:

• Loss aversion – where we spend time fixing the spot fires in our business and managing our work routine because we are fearful of the chaos that may ensue if we trade the known for the unknown. For instance, our fear that a customer will go elsewhere is we don’t respond to their email this very minute even though (a) it will interrupt you from what you should be doing and (b) first thing tomorrow would likely be fine.

• Status quo bias – where our current state is what we are used to and hard to break away from. Small business owners are used to being frenzied and “always on”, and that can be a dangerous path to burn out. Are you in a rut of busy-ness because that’s what you believe is the life of small business owner? Remember that everything you do is ultimately your choice, and that includes getting stuck in a pattern of feeling a slave to time.

• Framing – where convention is that time is displayed a certain, in-exhaustive way that perhaps frames our tendency to be wasteful. Ever found yourself saying “I can’t believe it’s November already. Where did the year go”? This is a function of how we frame our working lives – most of us using weekends and public holidays as milestones to mark where we are in time, and in so doing missing the small increments of minutes and hours. Be aware of the value of the moments of your time. Choosing which meetings or seminars to attend and being assured enough to walk out if it they not proving an effective use of your time is part of this. Still reluctant? Think of your hourly rate and that should help you judge the value you are receiving.

Take action

Will owning either of these clocks help small business owners or busy families to make more of the present moment? Well, both require contemplation and ultimately, reconsideration of the decisions that are creating the situation of time pressure, and who has time for that? But seriously, each of us has to make decisions about how we live the 86,400 seconds every day. I encourage you to spend at least 1,800 of them – 30 minutes* – planning how you can shatter your “time poor” state.

* Plan to do this at 8.15 this Wednesday. Why? Diarising a specific action will mean it will happen.

Bri Williams is a marketer, presenter and author who specialises in behavioural economics. Her book, “22 Minutes to a Better Business; how behavioural economics can help you tackle everyday business issues” is available through the Blurb bookstore and you can follow Bri @peoplepatterns.