A Monday Is a Tuesday Is a Sunday as Covid-19 Disrupts Internal Clocks

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-monday-is-a-tuesday-is-a-sunday-as-covid-19-disrupts-internal-clocks/

by pseudolus • 6 years ago

87 95 6 years ago

scientificamerican.com

danharaj• 6 years ago

Personally I'm on Monday 68

sneakernets• 6 years ago

Still in Smarch.

kps• 6 years ago

Today is the 9766th of September 1993.

Crespyl• 6 years ago

Today is Boomtime, the 1st day of Confusion in the YOLD 3186

non-entity• 6 years ago

It was mostly like that for me prior to coronavirus except for the the weekend which provided me with enough novelty to break the monotony of the week.

But yeah stay-at-home destroyed that, everyday is effectively the same, and despite me planning some grand productivity at the beginning of it all, I've basically done nothing.

awillen• 6 years ago

I was taking a sabbatical when this all started, so thankfully I've already begun to perceive time through important milestones like taking the trash out on Tuesday night and giving my dogs flea pills at the end of every month.

Really gives life meaning, y'know?

xyzzy_plugh• 6 years ago

I'm in the same boat and frankly I'm not sure what's worse to my internal clock: not having anything to do or not having anywhere to go.

bencollier49• 6 years ago

Friday night drinks, Sunday roasts and a walk on a Saturday help to keep anything working in sensible cadences, I find.

aaron-santos• 6 years ago

After a few weeks of oatmeal time, I employed the same strategy. Monday night I call the folks. Tuesday is music night. I'm learning Let It Go on the recorder to play for my niece. Wednesday is reading night. Thursday is movie night. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are all open. Every other weekend is virtual board game night with friends.

I like having something to look forward to. It provides enough structure that the weeks have a rhythm. However, each week is more or less the same. If that ever becomes too much, I'll insert some events with monthly structure.

war10256• 6 years ago

We've started doing a Skype call with my mom and my brother's family every Sunday evening.

It adds a bit of a milepost to the week, which is nice.

Also, this is the most I've talked to my brother in probably a decade. It's been really nice actually. I hope we keep it up indefinitely.

nathanaldensr• 6 years ago

Or maybe we're just reverting to how things should be. Maybe our internal clocks were disrupted by the artificial five-day eight-hour work week.

booleandilemma2• 6 years ago

No, this feels unnatural to me. I miss going to an office and interacting with people face to face instead of over the phone.

I’ve been spending most of my time cooped up in my apartment like a hermit, ordering food online and going outside on weekends. Every day feels the same. The sooner this ends the better.

emptyfile• 6 years ago

As opposed to the usual grind of commuting and spending 8 hours a day in the office? I really don't get it.

I'm back in the office today after 2.5 months of remote work and it really bums me out. 1 hour of my life daily spent on my commute because colleagues aren't disciplined enough to communicate/work remotely and need a babysitter looking over their shoulder.

overcast2• 6 years ago

You're free to go back to the office to chat when this is all over, please just let the rest of us continue to work remotely in silence. The savings on commute time quality of life alone are immense.

bdcravens3• 6 years ago

I’m finding myself puzzled over why it’s so hot - I started my lockdown on March 11 and have to actively remind myself that we skipped Spring this year.

globular-toast5• 6 years ago

There is still a month left of spring.

MangoCoffee• 6 years ago

you are not wrong. this Monday to Friday 9-5 work hours is created by man. our ancestors either go hunt or gather. do they have this sense of artificial work days/hours? do they have weekend?

minikites• 6 years ago

Hunter-gatherers spend less time working per Calorie of food than agriculturists.

dkdk8283• 6 years ago

I had a job that wasn’t bound by time. It was fantastic.

I had work assigned and showed up for the occasional meeting. I’d often get it all done in a few late nights and used the rest of the week to do whatever I want.

cpascal• 6 years ago

Nearly 50 percent of people experienced time dragging during March, whereas about 24 percent perceived it to be speeding up.

For me it's been a paradoxical blend of the two, months seem to drag on forever, but the week blazes by. Every time we get to Friday it feels as if Monday was just a day or two ago.

Bizarre.

JTon• 6 years ago

A paradoxical blend for me too, but interestingly opposite to yours. Week seem to drag and months seem to blaze

OGWhales• 6 years ago

Yeah that’s how it for me. One week takes all eternity compared to what I’m used to a week feeling like. Yet a month goes by in the blink of an eye. Odd feeling and doesn’t make sense

gnulinux• 6 years ago

Exactly the same for me. It feels like time is passing extremely fast, but at the same time it's the same "late March" that is being dragged for ages. Last week I told my therapist that it feels like I meet her every 2 hours. It really does feel this way. Suddenly it's monday, suddenly it's friday, suddenly it's monday again.

And I'm living alone with a cat. I can't imagine how this is with people living with a whole bunch of children.

baq• 6 years ago

from experience - there're neither weekdays, weekends nor weeks at all anymore, just tireday and lesstireday :)

cgriswald• 6 years ago

Actually it’s my kid that keeps me knowing what day it is since she still has classes and we have scheduled chores.

JoeAltmaier• 6 years ago

The same reason 30 minutes in a dentist waiting room seems like hours, while a day at the amusement park seems to pass in a flash. Novel experiences and their rate must be involved.

raihansaputra2• 6 years ago

"The days are long but the years are short" - ???

Paraphrasing, but this is a phrase that's often used on uncertain situations. It feels like that too for me.

raihansaputra2• 6 years ago

I think the elaboration from Viktor E Frankl's Man's Search For Meaning is the best piece of writing on this.

"The unemployed worker, for example, is in a similar position. His existence has become provisional and in a certain sense he cannot live for the future or aim at a goal. Research work done on unemployed miners has shown that they suffer from a peculiar sort of deformed time—inner time—which is a result of their unemployed state. Prisoners, too, suffered from this strange “time-experience.” In camp, a small time unit, a day, for example, filled with hourly tortures and fatigue, appeared endless. A larger time unit, perhaps a week, seemed to pass very quickly. My comrades agreed when I said that in camp a day lasted longer than a week. How paradoxical was our time-experience! In this connection we are reminded of Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain, which contains some very pointed psychological remarks. Mann studies the spiritual development of people who are in an analogous psychological position, i.e., tuberculosis patients in a sanatorium who also know no date for their release. They experience a similar existence—without a future and without a goal."

icedchai• 6 years ago

With me weeks fly by, but some days, often Monday, seem to last forever! It doesn't make much sense.

furyofantares• 6 years ago

In normal circumstances, the present and the past are always opposite speeds for me.

If I've got nothing going on, the present takes forever, I'm bored. But once a prolonged boredom is in the past, it feels like it was fast -- there's not much to remember.

If I'm super busy, the present goes by super quick. I never get bored and always have stuff to do. But if I look back at a prolonged period of busy time, it feels like it took a long time -- I have lots of stuff to remember.

kaybe2• 6 years ago

And then there's intercontinental travel days.

(I try to time them so I arrive around noon at the latest so I can get my bearings and make sure I can reach my accommodation safely no matter what and ideally explore a little.)

At the end of a day like this the memory of having woken up to start that day at some point becomes very distant, like it happened ages ago. At the same time, the day doesn't fly by fast either. I think it helps to interact with the world that much and get out of my head. It reminds me of being a child a little, so many new things to discover and so many things that cannot be readily understood and still trusting that it'll be fine.

alephnan• 6 years ago

The days are long but the decades are short https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...

war10256• 6 years ago

My wife and I have had several disagreements over whether something happened last weekend or two months ago. It all sort of blends together at this point.

jejunebug• 6 years ago

"what a week today has been"

dboreham• 6 years ago

I'm having the Groundhog Day experience: every day is the same. I'm having difficulty determining how long in the past any given event occurred, presumably because normally that process is aided by time anchors (e.g the week before spring break). That said, it feels as if this "every day is the same" situation is better somehow. Less cognitive load in figuring out "what to do"; less effort expended planning future activities; much easier to work consistently on projects (all sorts of home improvement projects that have been on the todo list for years are now completed). It feels like being 12 years old to some extent.

adaisadais• 6 years ago

I was feeling the same way until I started jogging in the mornings. It fires my mind up and the endorphins help keep the mind sharp throughout the day.

milkytron• 6 years ago

Just started this today.

Prior, I had been jogging in the evenings, but my asthma had been getting really bad the past week (probably because the grass is pollinating) so I figured it'd be worth switching it up.

Today I've been much more productive, and was more productive earlier in the day, which is nice.

I also hope it helps me fall asleep earlier. Prior, I was falling asleep at roughly 1am and feeling a bit dazed in the morning.

Scoundreller• 6 years ago

Heh, in Canada we had “Victoria Day” last week where we light a bunch of fireworks.

This year there were calls to Toronto Police that night several times an hour with “sounds of gunshots”.

And more on future nights as people lit off the rest of their fireworks.

every• 6 years ago

A small sample of retirement. The seasons become your timepiece...

csours• 6 years ago

The only thing pinning my week down is Twitch streams - certain people broadcast on certain days.

caseysoftware• 6 years ago

A couple weeks ago, my team and I determined it was still March 97th and I'm sticking to it.

ptero• 6 years ago

Day of the week might be a useful sync to keep, but for most people (certainly for me), the time of the day is way more important.

There is a risk that sleep/awake cycles float once rigid schedules disappear. This happened to me once in grad school during a semester when I had a fellowship, so did not have to teach and could just work on the thesis. While first thought was "why should I care, I can still work the same" this quickly resulted in a huge loss of productivity until I forced a correction. An hour or two each way is nothing (in fact may be good as one adjusts to a more natural schedule), but I would guard aggressively against switching to a nocturnal lifestyle. My 2c.

tsycho• 6 years ago

In the show "Downton Abbey", I think in season 1, Maggie Smith (think royal old lady) says, "What's a weekend?"

https://youtu.be/zhfpBW-nUWk

For very different reasons, we all feel the same now :)

AnIdiotOnTheNet• 6 years ago

Speak for yourself. Some of us still had to go in to work through this whole thing.

bdcravens3• 6 years ago

Even though I’ve been working from home the entire time, I can’t shake the feeling that I’m approaching the end of summer vacation (43 with no kids so it has been a long time since that was relevant to me)

jdeisenberg• 6 years ago

It would be interesting to re-do this study on Mental Representations of Weekdays: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

semireg2• 6 years ago

I’ve always used “days are long, years are short” to talk about raising children. Pulling our two year old out of daycare makes you really reflect on how slowly time moves for them when their only concerns seems to be legos and applesauce. But then you look at the two years they’ve existed and it feels like a blink of an eye.

godot• 6 years ago

IMO, when I really think about the phrase "days are long, years are short", it seems like what it's saying, or maybe it's a more depressing way to interpret it, is that "you're not doing anything special/memorable in your days" -- hence the days feel long, but after they've passed, it feels short because there wasn't anything in particular that was memorable to the parents. However, do keep in mind that a lot of everyday experience like walks in the parks that are nothing special to the parents, are very special for the kids.

We have a two year old as well, and it certainly feels tough -- it's not like you can travel the world with a toddler (at least, it's out of our abilities range, haha. Some people can do it, I'm sure.), so it's all about living the everyday life (for now, until they're older) and making the most of it. SIP doesn't make it any easier too. Try to at least make the weekends interesting! Park walks are always possible, and a lot of outdoorsy nature type places are possible to go to also, just don't go to the super crowded places.

semireg2• 6 years ago

We're having a really good time! We just welcomed our second son into the family last Saturday. That day WOOSHED by, and certainly memories were made. Fwiw, I don't find the situation depressing at all. I'm loving the slow-fast-hybrid time with our children. It just "is" what it is.

kaybe2• 6 years ago

It's good to remember how little toddlers have experienced yet.

If they're crying because they dropped their ice cream, it's understandable since that might very possibly be the worst thing that ever happened to them. (Which is good, in a way.)

rconti• 6 years ago

I miss the office and the routine, but frankly, my days go by much FASTER when working from home. Instead of being stranded away from home for 9 hours, I get to sleep in, and dip in and out of work more frequently. I work later in the day, but it's broken up by various things in the house; feed the cats, wife comes home from work, etc.

Obviously it depends on the day, but some days in the office it would be noon, and the end of the day would feel a positively unimaginable amount of time away.

globular-toast5• 6 years ago

It doesn't say whether these people are working or not, and whether they were working before quarantine. If you were a housewife before quarantine I can't imagine things seem much different. But if, like my brother, you were a mechanic and now you're stuck at home with no real ability to practise your skills then it would feel very different. I am working at home every day and feel absolutely no different in terms of time.

war10256• 6 years ago

My wife stays home with the kids and she made the comment at the beginning of all this that the most frustrating thing was all the people posting about how hard it was to be home all the time or reaching out to see how she was doing.

From her perspective, very little about her day to day life actually changed.

The main thing we had to adjust to is that we couldn't go to stores anymore as a way to get out of the house. We replaced that with taking walks and socializing with our neighbors.

Monday she went to the fabric store for the first time in three months. She was pretty excited about that.

guyzero• 6 years ago

Honestly I've felt this. way for a decade - when I moved to the south Bay Area from Canada I no longer had any meaningful weather and it very much disrupts your sense of time and history.

war10256• 6 years ago

Seasons are great for noting the progression of time.

Xcelerate• 6 years ago

I noticed this as well. Living in California, it’s like the passage of time seems to have halted since not much outside changes day to day. It’s so strange compared to having seasons, where it felt like each year had a well defined start and end. (Not that I’m complaining; I prefer the sunshine.)

knzhou• 6 years ago

I've just decided that my weekend days are Wednesday and Saturday -- on Wednesdays in particular I get to waste as much time on HN as I want! You don't need to work 5 consecutive days every week, now you can do what works for you.

jedberg5• 6 years ago

When lockdown started we stopped enforcing bedtimes and turned off all alarms. We were in the lucky position where the kids (3 and 5) are young enough not to have any zoom meetings, and I don't have any morning meetings.

Our family shifted to going to bed around 3am and I would wake up around 10am/11am and kids would wake up around 1pm.

We actually had to start enforcing bedtimes again because we noticed we were shifting to a 25 hour day. We got to the point where the kids were up till about 6am before we just went cold turkey and woke them up early so they would get tired sooner.

But our family are clearly night owls. We're now enforcing a 1am bedtime for the kids, and my wife and I are going to bed around 3am, and then we all wake up between 10am/11am.

nefitty• 6 years ago

What’s your plan for when they start school?

zoopdewoop• 6 years ago

Switch back. lol

jedberg5• 6 years ago

If in person school actually happens, or the Zooms are in the morning, we'll start shifting back a couple weeks beforehand. We've taken them to other time zones before and they are pretty normal as far as shifting about one hour a day.

ardit33• 6 years ago

I have experienced this myself.... If I wake up by 1pm, that is early in my books. And bed time is about 5am, right before sunrise.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/locked-down-teens-stay-up-all-n...

dougmwne3• 6 years ago

Do your kids get screen time at night? What kind of lighting do you have in your home? Young kids staying up till 6am sounds pretty odd without a lot of artificial blue lighting. If I have a screen-free evening I'm wiped out pretty early. If I'm in front of a screen I don't even feel tired.

jedberg5• 6 years ago

The do sometimes get screens at night, but I'm a big stickler about no blue light after 9pm normally (although now that's no blue light after midnight).

I've changed out bulbs throughout the house so that we can light the whole house in 1850K light at night, and all screens use some sort of red-shifting (screens that can't redshift like TVs get turned off).

But you're right, if they get too much screen is does keep them up longer. But even without the blue screens they will stay up playing with toys under 1850K lights until the very AM hours!

russellbeattie• 6 years ago

A family of night owls! So lucky!!! I have an ex-wife who was a strict by-the-clock sleeper, and a son who is a natural morning riser. Even in his teens, he regularly says goodnight by himself at 10 pm because he's tired, and wakes up at 7 am. (I love him more than anything, but why???)

This morning I went to bed at 6:30 am. So, yeah. Having your family around to spend time with in the middle of the night sounds like a dream come true to me!

The 1am bedtime is a good idea though, missing all the daylight isn't good for the little ones, or us either.

seanwilson• 6 years ago

Maybe it's my own bias, but I find it tiresome that people assume that it's the majority opinion that most people don't like working from home and most people miss going into the office.

Random recent report I found that shows working from home might be more popular than some people assume:

https://www.newsweek.com/54-percent-americans-want-work-remo...

"An IBM survey released on Friday found that 54 percent of the 25,000 adults polled would like to be able to primarily work from home and 75 percent would like the option to do it occasionally. Once businesses can reopen, 40 percent of people responded that they feel strongly their employer should offer opt-in remote work options."

ulisesrmzroche• 6 years ago

The majority of people including me like ocasional work from home, I did that pre pandemic and it was great.

The majority opinion here is that offices - and face to face human interaction - are useless and Mother Nature naturally selected wrong

Destroy all hugs

deskamess• 6 years ago

All I know is we started lock down Mar 15. If Ken Jennings streak started on Mar 15, he is still championing.

jedberg5• 6 years ago

Technically he'd be losing today. If they did a show every day. If they only did the shows five days a week, then yes, he'd still be the champion.

boromi• 6 years ago

Can anyone explain to science behind why some people naturally prefer to stay up as late as possible? For me I prefer to go to bed very late 4am.The Coronavirus has enabled me to be more productive on my schedule

wanderr• 6 years ago

I think there are many different reasons why this happens. For me, Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome is a pretty ideal match to what happens for me naturally, which is to say that my body seems to be on a ~26 hour cycle. The WFH situation has not made a difference for me being able to keep a schedule that works better for me because: meetings.

Slippery_John• 6 years ago

The article touches on this, but it's very important to be aware that your retrospective perception of time is highly dependent on the number of new experiences you have in a given time frame. Years went longer when you were a kid because so much of the world was new to you.

If you want the weeks/months/years to feel more dense then the answer is to do new things as often as possible. Learn something new, try something new, read something new, go somewhere new. Going to a new park or hiking a new trail is a great way to bookend a week that will help keep your weeks feeling like weeks. Making new recipes and trying new foods can also help, if less so - I've personally slowly been trying every variety of coffee available to me over the course of the lockdown. So every few days I have a new memorable thing engaging multiple senses, and I'm learning to appreciate the nuances of something I used to largely mindlessly consume. I also have certain activities pegged to certain days to try to keep some perspective of the week as it moves, e.g. study Wednesday, board game Friday, D&D Sunday, etc.

All this had definitely helped me control my retrospective perception of time. Managing my prospective perception has proven to be far more challenging, if anybody has tips there I'd be appreciative.

chmaynard• 6 years ago

Is this really important research? I think not. Scientific American used to be a serious science magazine with very high standards. Probably to stay in business, it has morphed into the pop-science tabloid it is today. Sad.

mshaler• 6 years ago

COVID on My Back

Well I’m running COVID on my back I've been hiding COVID on my back Avoiding maskless spreaders COVID on my back And the victim? Well he won’t come back

I've been running Zoomday Doomsday Whatstheday Blursday Fryday Blursday Zoomday

What have I done? What have I done?

Yes, I'm running Down the WFH track Won't you help me? COVID on my back It will catch me If I dare drop back Won't you give me All the f*cks I lack?

What have I done? What have I done?

A Monday Is a Tuesday Is a Sunday as Covid-19 Disrupts Internal Clocks

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