"Take Back Your Time Day" Is Coming

October 24 is Take Back Your Time Day.

On that date, Americans will have worked the same number of hours that Europeans typically

work in a whole year. In other words, Americans work nearly nine more weeks per year than

their European counterparts.

A U.S. and Canadian initiative, Take Back Your Time Day, draws attention to the twin

problems of overwork and "time poverty." Organizers say the number of hours Americans spend

working has risen dramatically over the last 30 years.

Consider these items from the "Take Back Your Time" handbook:

* Between 1979 and 2000, married couples aged 25-54 saw their total number of hours of paid

work rise by 388, about 12 percent.

* Almost 40 percent of workers put in more than 50 hours per week.

* 26 percent of American workers don't take any vacation time.

* Since the 1980's, work hours have risen by about half a percent annually.

Experts say "time poverty" is hurting our marriages, our physical and mental health, our

civic life, our kids and the environment.

Maybe you feel the pressure: Having too little time to exercise or prepare healthy meals.

Being electronically leashed to your job when you crave a chance to relax. You or someone

in your family putting in ever longer hours at work for fear of being "downsized."

Then there are the more subtle signs. Ever notice the way getting time with friends

requires searching your calendars to find a small patch of mutually available time weeks

away? Or maybe your dog looks under-exercised and lonely.

It wasn't always so.

Around 1900, American working hours had long been declining, and economics books and

articles predicted the continuing expansion of leisure time, writes leisure scholar Benjamin

Hunnicutt.

In the 1920s, Hunnicutt states, Julian Huxley said in a speech that a two-day work week was

inevitable because "the human being can consume so much and no more...." In the 1930's,

economist John Maynard Keyes observed that "when we reach the point when the world produces

all the goods that it needs in two days, as it inevitably will...we must turn out attention

to the great problem of what to do with our leisure."

I was amazed to learn from Hunnicutt that the Kellog cereal factories began a 6-hour workday

in the 1930s. Productivity rose, workers lavished timed on their families, and commercial

recreation and nonprofit organizations flourished.

Yet, here we are, 70 years later, with complex economic, political and cultural realities

leading to ever-shrinking windows of time for nurturing ourselves and our ties to each

other.

What to do?

On one hand, activists suggest, you could respond as an individual. You might:

* Schedule once-a-week or once-a-month family times.
* Keep a "time diary" to raise your awareness of how you spend time.
* Write to your newspaper about time poverty.
* Organize a civic or religious gathering to discuss time issues.
* Claim a block of time for cooking slow food, cuddling your pets, making music or

photographing something beautiful.

Or, you can join with an organization. Advocacy groups around the country are organizing

teach-ins, conferences and discussion groups about overwork and time poverty. A new "It's

About Time" Coalition is bringing overwork to the attention of candidates for public office.

To learn more, visit www.timeday.org and www.worktolive.info.

(c) 2004 Norma Schmidt, Coach, LLC