The world is switching to West coast time
bicoastal March 12th, 2007
I walked into a Swatch store the other day, but promptly walked out when I realized I had absolutely no use for a watch. When I was a kid I loved to buy and wear cool watches, but ever since I got a cell phone I haven’t needed one. Apparently I’m not alone, as a friend tipped me off to a story in Slate on the declining sales of watches.
Although my watch usage is related to the development of new technologies that happen to give the time, like computers and cell phones, I actually took off my watch for the first time in college when a friend, who was a math major who wore shorts and sandals in the winter, explained that she didn’t wear a watch because it freed her from the habit of worrying about time when she didn’t need to.
The time is irrelevant most of the time: it only really matters when you need to be somewhere or meet a deadline. And when you really need to know, there’s almost always a clock within sight. Not having a watch actually makes you more efficient, because you don’t waste time looking at the wrist or worrying about the passing seconds. And, it’s more relaxing because you’re not looking at your wrist or worrrying about the passing seconds.
This, I think, is a particularly west coast approach to a productive life.
And, it’s doubly appropriate because my sandal/short wearing math major friend who discovered this paradox grew up in Pittsburgh, and later moved to Palo Alto.
