The Gift of Time

Last year during the holidays, my wife and I were lucky enough to be in New York the week before Christmas. I was working during the trip, but it was nice being able to have her there to share evenings and a free weekend. On one of our evenings walking around the city, we stopped into the Chick-Fil-A Time Shop. The entire premise of the pop up was to “inspire guests to adapt their perspective of time, underscoring the importance of togetherness.” I believe the holiday season is when many of us really stop to think about making sure our time is spent with those important to us.

2020 was a strange year but I think it was great in that it made me feel more conscious of where I was spending my time. I have spent more time on Zoom meetings than I would like to admit, but the best part is not all of those were for work! We had happy hours, birthday parties, weddings, game nights, and even family reunions. I’ve looked back on these to see that in a “normal” year, I would not have been able to make all these events and interact with those important to me. Everyone from across the country was making an effort to be there and be part of these events, some of which I hadn’t seen in years!

I also noticed a change at work. When remote work really set in, a lot of our calendars were packed with meetings, so much so we had to scramble to get tasks done before our next meeting started. Sometimes we had to begin work earlier and finish later. As time has gone on however, I saw a change where I think we learned that we don’t necessarily need to schedule an hour block to ask a couple of questions or that a 2-minute call may prevent a long email thread. We started making a conscious effort to respect each other’s time so that we can move the project forward and have time to complete our tasks.

The 2020 holidays arrived and those Zoom sessions with family and friends continued! If I have learned anything over the course of 2020, it would be to be conscious of where I spend my time and where I ask others to spend theirs as well.

As we head into 2021, let’s enjoy the time we have!

Until next time…we are Advoco, make every minute count.

About James: James McDaniel is a Solutions Consultant at Advoco and graduate of Virginia Tech where he studied Industrial and Systems Engineering. When James isn’t helping Advoco customers solve complex EAM problems, you can find him watching a baseball game, most likely the Braves! Questions? Send James an email!

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