Book Review : Creating Time

Title : Creating Time - Using Creativity to Reinvent the Clock and Reclaim your Life

Author : Marney K. Makridakins

Publisher : New World Library

ISBN : 978-1-60868-111-2

We all want more time than what we have. Twenty four hours in a day do not seem to be enough to do, to achieve, to try and in a nutshell, to lead a fulfilling life and we all find these overtly abused excuses of lack of time stumbling out of our mouths so very often - "I do not have enough time" or "If only I had more time" or " I am too busy".   The author Marney K. Makridakins, very validly points out that despite the technological advancements which have enabled us to achieve much more in a month than we ever did in a year, earlier, our lives have become busier manifolds. So are these advancements helping us in leading a relaxed life? In fact, just the contrary is true.

In 'Creating Time', Makridakins is trying to take the major hurdle of lack of this essential commodity - time, head on. After understanding, evaluating and analyzing the concept of time management, she has devised some very exciting and interesting tools to create more time. Interestingly what all it requires is some creativity which human mind is very much capable of.

Makridakins encourages the readers to embark on a journey of rediscovering a unique relationship with time. In fact, this is an empowering exercise which could gradually lead people to move away from 'making time and managing time' in their lives to 'imagining time and creating time'. For this, it is essential to have an open mind and to be prepared to experience the great metamorphosis. Here is a very brief peek into what she suggests us to change - Change the way you talk about time, Change the way you measure time and Change the way you experience time. It is a worthwhile exercise to read the complete book to get the full benefit.

The various tools that she presents in the book, make use of technology, art, philosophy, science, imagination, logic and of course, the most important ingredient - the human creativity in finding ways to create more time. Each chapter is full of interesting anecdotes, personal stories, references and ARTsignments. The ARTsignments are hands-on art projects designed to initiate self awareness and transformation in a playful manner. Common time related challenges are enlisted along with various ways to face them.

For me, the highlights of the book were - the poetic pauses at the beginning of each chapter and the  art work by over 80 contributors which help in illustrating the point that Marney is trying to make through her writing - the multi-faceted nature of time.

The title itself is very intriguing which will entice the readers to pick this book up and see what all it has to offer in terms of creating and expanding more time in the same 24 hours.

It is a wonderful book on time management bringing in unique perspectives which have not been offered or thought about before. So I would say, it is a great accompaniment to the time management courses besides being a great inspirational book.