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Leitura de 13 min

How We Spend Our Days, How We Spend Our Lives, and One Way To Get a Better Grasp On Time

Summary

The episode opens with host Jonathan Cottrell sharing a powerful quote by author Annie Dillard: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” He reflects on the significance of this idea, emphasizing that our daily routines and choices are not merely preparation for some future life but are life itself happening right now. The quote describes a schedule as a “net for catching days” and a “scaffolding” that provides structure, but Cottrell warns against becoming so bound by routine that decades later we look back wondering what we did with our time.

Cottrell urges listeners to grasp the significance of today, arguing that understanding the weight of how we spend our time leads to better choices. He addresses the common feeling of being overly busy with crowded inboxes and mornings devoid of time for meaningful pursuits. The core message is that life is not only in the future; it is occurring now, as we listen. This realization empowers us to evaluate our daily actions and their long-term impact.

After a sponsor break for OneMonth.com, Cottrell offers a practical, brain-based hack to become more mindful of time: take a different way home each day (or a different walking route if you work from home). He explains that our brains take shortcuts and normalize patterns, making time feel elastic and days blur together. By introducing small novelties—like a changed commute or rearranged home decor—we force our brains to engage with the present moment, creating “anchors” in real change rather than relying solely on the scaffold of a schedule.

In conclusion, Cottrell reiterates that how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. The simple act of varying a daily route is presented as a tool to break out of mental autopilot, heighten our perception of time, and consciously shape the days that collectively become our life. The episode is framed as universally applicable, extending beyond developers to anyone seeking to live more intentionally.

Recommendations

People

  • Annie Dillard — An author whose quote about schedules and how we spend our days forms the central inspiration for the episode. Her writing is described as powerful and inspiring.

Tools

  • OneMonth.com — An online learning platform mentioned in the sponsor break that teaches coding and tech skills like Ruby on Rails and Python through 30-day courses requiring 15 minutes a day.

Topic Timeline

  • 00:00:00 — Introduction and the Annie Dillard quote on days and lives — Jonathan Cottrell introduces the episode’s theme: how we spend our days is how we spend our lives. He reads and reflects on a lengthy, inspiring quote by author Annie Dillard, which describes a schedule as a “net for catching days” and a “scaffolding” for labor. The quote sets the philosophical foundation for the discussion about time, routine, and life’s composition.
  • 00:01:15 — Reflecting on the significance of daily actions — Cottrell elaborates on the quote’s meaning, stressing that our day-to-day actions are what we are doing with our lives in large part. He argues that we often lose sight of this simple truth and treat today as mere preparation for the future. He encourages listeners to understand that life is happening right now, and grasping today’s significance leads to better choices and an awareness of time’s importance.
  • 00:04:38 — Sponsor break for OneMonth.com learning platform — The episode takes a break for a sponsor message promoting OneMonth.com, an online learning platform that teaches coding and other tech skills in 30 days with 15 minutes of daily effort. A discount offer is provided for Developer Tea listeners using a specific URL. This segment is a direct advertisement before returning to the episode’s core content.
  • 00:06:12 — A practical tip to be more mindful of time — Cottrell transitions to offering a practical way to become more mindful of time on a daily basis. He explains that our perception of time is elastic, while time itself is constant. To counteract the brain’s tendency to take shortcuts and normalize routines, he suggests a simple hack: take a different way home from work each day (or a different walking route if working from home). This small change forces the brain to engage with novelty.
  • 00:07:22 — How novelty breaks the brain’s pattern shortcuts — Cottrell delves into the psychology behind the tip, explaining that our brains efficiently recognize patterns, making life feel run-of-the-mill. By introducing minor novelties—like changing a commute route or rearranging home decor—we create new anchors in real change. This breaks the cycle of mental autopilot described by Dillard’s “scaffold” metaphor, helping us better experience and understand the passage of time in our lives.

Episode Info

  • Podcast: Developer Tea
  • Author: Jonathan Cutrell
  • Category: Technology Business Careers Society & Culture
  • Published: 2015-04-14T11:00:00Z
  • Duration: 00:09:08

References

Podcast Info

Transcript

[00:00:00] Hey everyone and welcome to Developer T. My name is Jonathan Cottrell and today is our

[00:00:05] very special inspiration episode for this week.

[00:00:09] Today we are talking about how we spend our days and how we spend our lives.

[00:00:20] Annie Dillard, an author, she said this quote, it’s kind of a long one so stick with it.

[00:00:27] This is the quote.

[00:00:29] She said,

[00:00:30] How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.

[00:00:34] What we do with this hour and that one is what we are doing.

[00:00:38] A schedule defends from chaos and whim.

[00:00:41] It is a net for catching days.

[00:00:43] It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections

[00:00:48] of time.

[00:00:49] A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order, willed, faked, and so brought into being.

[00:00:56] It is a piece and a haven set into the wreck of time.

[00:01:00] It is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.

[00:01:05] Each day is the same so you remember the series afterward as a blurred and powerful pattern.

[00:01:11] How powerful this quote is from Annie Dillard.

[00:01:15] It’s so inspiring.

[00:01:16] It’s one that has stuck with me over the years because I think we lose sight of the very

[00:01:22] simple and plain truth that what we do on a day-to-day basis is what we are doing with

[00:01:28] our lives in large.

[00:01:31] It’s what we do on a day-to-day basis that we remember in years from now and that people

[00:01:36] know us by.

[00:01:38] The things that we are doing today echo tomorrow.

[00:01:42] We should understand this in our day-to-day lives.

[00:01:46] Annie’s quote also includes this information, this concept about a schedule, about how it

[00:01:51] holds together the fragmented concept of time for us.

[00:01:57] Time is so difficult for us to understand and so we create these schedules with our

[00:02:03] time so that we can understand it better.

[00:02:06] What I want for you to do today is to hold on to the significance of what you choose

[00:02:12] to spend your time on.

[00:02:14] The reason why I want you to do this is because I think it is through that understanding of

[00:02:21] significance of your time that you begin to be able to take a step back and look at

[00:02:27] your overly busy life or you look at your overly crowded inbox or your really busy morning

[00:02:36] where you don’t have time to do the things that you really want to do.

[00:02:39] You take a step back and you realize that you have no time to do the things that you

[00:02:44] want to do.

[00:02:45] Well, now is all that you actually have.

[00:02:48] Today is making up your life and if you want to do something with your life, then today

[00:02:52] is the first day to start doing that thing.

[00:02:55] Now am I saying that you need to go out and quit your job if ultimately that’s what you

[00:03:00] want to do in life?

[00:03:01] Absolutely not.

[00:03:02] Am I actually even saying that you need to quit your job in the long term?

[00:03:06] No, that’s not the point of this.

[00:03:08] The point is to understand that what you are doing today is not a preparation for your

[00:03:15] life.

[00:03:16] Your life is not going to occur only in the future.

[00:03:19] Your life is occurring right now.

[00:03:22] Your life is occurring as you are listening to me talk right now.

[00:03:27] And so if you can grab a hold of the significance of today, I think that you will make better

[00:03:33] choices that you’ll understand the consequences of your choices and the importance of time,

[00:03:40] the importance of how you spend that time because if you’re only doing what Annie says

[00:03:46] if you’re only standing on a scaffold of a schedule, if you’re only sticking to that

[00:03:51] schedule then you’ll find yourself decades later looking back and thinking what in the

[00:03:55] world have I done with my time?

[00:03:58] What am I doing with my time?

[00:03:59] Now this episode doesn’t just go for developers so I hope that if you are not a developer

[00:04:05] and you’re listening to this that you can connect with the underlying message here and

[00:04:09] that is to understand the importance of today.

[00:04:14] Understand the importance of time because today is your life.

[00:04:19] What you do with your days, how you spend your days is of course simply logically what

[00:04:26] you do with your time in each and every day including today.

[00:04:31] That is how you spend your life.

[00:04:33] We’re going to take a quick sponsor break and then I’m going to tell you one way that

[00:04:38] you can be more mindful of your time on a day to day basis.

[00:04:43] So let’s take a quick sponsor break and then I’ll be right back with the rest of the show.

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[00:06:03] So how can you be more mindful of the time that you spend on a day to day basis?

[00:06:12] Well first we have to understand kind of the fundamental ways that we see time.

[00:06:17] We can see time very elastically.

[00:06:20] This is why you can look at your day or your week and say wow it seems like it was such

[00:06:26] a long week or it seems like it was such a long day and we have phrases like time flies

[00:06:30] when you’re having fun.

[00:06:33] These kinds of things they go against the truth of time which is that time doesn’t

[00:06:39] actually change it’s just our perception of time that changes.

[00:06:43] So one simple thing that you can do that will force your brain to better take advantage

[00:06:50] and understand and experience time is to take a different way home every day.

[00:06:56] Now I know that seems really really simple and if you work from home then there are other

[00:07:02] ways of handling this.

[00:07:04] Perhaps you take a walk and each day take a different route.

[00:07:08] And again this seems like a really crazy kind of weird hack and I’m not one for doing life

[00:07:14] hacks necessarily unless they work.

[00:07:17] But this one actually goes to the core of the way that our brain works.

[00:07:22] We actually take shortcuts in our brains.

[00:07:26] We start understanding patterns and those things become run of the mill.

[00:07:30] They become really normal.

[00:07:32] They become like that scaffold that Annie Dillard was talking about in her quote and

[00:07:37] to break our brains out of that cycle sometimes we have to do something entirely different

[00:07:43] even if that’s something that is very different is miniscule is very small.

[00:07:48] For example my wife she very often changes the way that our house is decorated and in

[00:07:55] that way we are experiencing a different thing each day.

[00:07:59] Our brain is grasping something new every day and that gives us a little bit more of

[00:08:04] an anchor instead of having to scaffold ourselves up in a schedule we are scaffolding ourselves

[00:08:11] up in real change in real things that are happening around us rather than allowing our

[00:08:16] brains to take those shortcuts that it so naturally and efficiently does.

[00:08:22] So take a new way home from work today or take a walk that you’ve never taken before.

[00:08:28] These are very simple ways that you can begin to understand the importance of time and how

[00:08:34] each day plays into your life.

[00:08:37] Thank you so much for listening to developer T. If you’d like to reach out to me you can

[00:08:41] reach me on Twitter at developer T or you can email me at developer T at gmail.com again

[00:08:47] my name is Jonathan.

[00:08:48] I have a Twitter account by the way it’s at Jake trail.

[00:08:51] I don’t mention it very often on the show but you can follow me there as well.

[00:08:56] Subscribe to the show if you don’t want to miss future episodes of developer T and until

[00:09:02] next time enjoy your tea.

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