Paradigm Makers Moonlit Minds Journal: Edition 6

What is time?

Author

Jess Price
January 13, 2025

Welcome to the sixth edition of Paradigm Makers Moonlit Minds Journal!

Table of Contents

Jess’ Monthly Reflection

2025 is here.

While I considered a cliche post about what a new year means, in reality, not much changed as the clock counted down. Amongst the end-of-year get-togethers and family celebrations, I was thinking about the concept of time.

This is not a new topic for me.

In 2023, I questioned if it was time to cancel the weekend and I spent most of 2024 trying (and failing) to find my ideal weekly schedule. I did this because I know the traditional 9-5 doesn't work with my natural energy cycle, and new work paradigms require challenging how we structure work.

I hope you enjoyed last night’s Wolf Moon,

Jess Price

Founder & Chief Vision Officer

EXPLORING THE HISTORICAL CONTEXT

How did Benjamin Franklin structure his day?

When I was in Philadelphia in September, I went to the Benjamin Franklin Museum. I knew Franklin was an important historical figure, yet it wasn't until I was walking around the remnants of his home and life that I realised how similar we were. Like myself, Franklin had a lifelong goal of self-improvement—completing many of the self-improvement experiments I am now attempting.

In his Autobiography, Franklin outlined his daily schedule:

  • 5 am - 8 am: Rise, wash and address "Powerful Goodness!", plan the day, pursue the current study, and have breakfast.

  • 8 am - 12 pm: Work

  • 12pm - 1pm: Read or look over accounts, and dine.

  • 1 pm - 5 pm: Work

  • 6 pm - 9 pm: Put things in their places, have supper, music or diversion, or conversation. Examination of the day.

  • 10 pm: Sleep

While this daily routine might sound similar to ours, there's one key distinction: it was pre-Industrial Revolution. Franklin developed this schedule to align with his 13 virtues. It was intrinsically motivated, existing in a world before the weekend.

With the Industrial Revolution, time became extrinsically linked to productivity, and economic value and work and leisure time were separated (Snyder).

This is still how we view time today.

If you're interested in more about the historical evolution of time, I recommend:

IDENTIFYING OPPORTUNITIES FOR WORK TODAY

How did you spend your time last year?

In addition to my Spotify Wrapped last month, I also received wraps related to health insights, podcasts and music, among others. With each wrapped, I started to form a picture of how I spent 2024 and was curious to see how many of the 366 days I could track. Turns out a lot...

Using a very unscientific method, my experiment was able to account for all but 12.8 days - or 307.2 hours.

With my new insights, I turned my focus to 2025 - the year I am determined to implement Cal Newport's three principles of Slow Productivity:

  1. Do fewer things

  2. Work at a natural pace

  3. Focus on quality over quantity

We have all heard the quote we overestimate what we can do in a day, and underestimate what we can do in a year, yet it wasn't until this 'tiny experiment' that I understood how powerful this message is.

We overestimate what we can do in a day because we no longer work at a natural pace.

Over the last two weeks, I’ve been using insights from Benjamin Franklin, the daily routines of other creative people and my own personal data to create my own daily routine. With a daily routine, I know how many hours I want to dedicate to creative work each day (for example) and can now cross reference this with time-tracking data from my work in 2024 to ensure I work at my natural pace.

This is an ongoing experiment so I'll be sure to share updates as I go.

If you're interested in learning more about slow productivity, deep work, or tracking how you spend your time in 2025, I recommend:

*This is an affiliate link and I will earn a commission if you sign up for a paid Toggl plan using this link

CREATING A NEW WORK PARADIGM FOR TOMORROW

How can we balance intrinsically versus extrinsically motivated time?

A shared concept of time is beneficial and is one of the successes of the first industrial revolution. Yet we are now experiencing the challenges that come with consistent, extrinsically motivated time - we are working more and spending less time on 'leisure' and sleep. Robert Owen proposed the slogan 'eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest' back in 1817.

While 'eight hours labour, eight hours recreation, eight hours rest' sounds catchy, it fails to capture the individual nuance of our modern daily lives. It was designed for a time when roughly 10% of free women held jobs, slavery was acceptable and children as young as 6 were expected to work in factories.

One of the questions I asked myself when I was thinking about the impact I wanted Paradigm Makers to have was: 'When humans and AI work side by side every day, what does work look like?'

In a blog post last week Sam Altman (founder of OpenAI/ChatGPT) said: "We believe that, in 2025, we may see the first AI agents "join the workforce" and materially change the output of companies." This prediction is shared by Forbes, MIT and countless other tech insiders.

In the fourth edition of Moonlit Minds (November 2024), I mentioned I have built my digital clone. What I didn't mention is that I also started experimenting with my own AI Agents. While they are incredible, the problem I continue to face is exhaustion. With the help of these agents, I can significantly increase my output, meaning what took me 3 weeks in 2023, I could do in 3 hours in 2024. This approach to work is not sustainable.

Instead, I propose we focus on identifying our own, personalised, intrinsically motivated daily routine, identify how long each task takes us to complete (with the help of our AI agents) and work backwards to plan our work week. While individuals focus on their personalised schedules, teams and organisations focus on the structure needed to support individual flexibility, whilst ensuring shared outcomes towards strategic priorities.

This will require us to rethink everything we accept as given at work, including contracts linking pay to hours; shifting hiring practices from a strict job description to one based on skills; the role of the office and what constitutes work in the modern era. While changing these 'fundamental' work norms may sound drastic, it’s necessary if humans are to succeed in a world of smart technology. It also won't work for everyone - some industries won't benefit from this next industrial revolution. While that may seem unfair, there will be changes that can be adopted if we think differently about work.

Perhaps most importantly, it’s time to eliminate catchy slogans that remove the necessary nuance of complex system-level change.

If you're interested in learning more about new work paradigms I recommend:

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