Time: Is it Well Spent?

Everything we do in life is measured by time. You go to a restaurant and the first thing you ask is how long is the wait? You are making supper at home, you look to see what the time and temperature is for cooking. Our GPS will tell us how long it will take to get from where we are to where we want to go.  It even tells us which route is the fastest. We set alarms to a specific time for getting up according to how much time we need to get ready for the day. Our vacation and sick time are calculated by how many hours we have worked. When you go to the doctor’s office you have to sign in at the time you arrive and when your appointment is.

My schedule is set by time.  I know exactly how long it will take to get from one client’s house to the next.  I have it down to the minute. I have figured in time of day with high traffic times and train times.  I know routes around so I can make my schedule. I tend to do this at home as well.  It drives my husband nuts.  He likes to be early for everything. Arriving on time is late for him.  We actually got to a funeral 45 minutes early one time and I thought what a waste of time. As we sat down, people we haven’t seen in a long time were able to come and talk and give hugs. So, maybe this wasn’t such a waste of time.

There are a lot of sayings that involve time.  Here are some of them: A good time was had by all, A stitch in time saves nine, Ahead of his time, All the time in the world, As time goes by, A moment in time, At this point in time, Better luck next time, Bide your time, Big time, crunch time, Daylight saving time, Dickens of a time, Do hard time, Double time, High time, Their time has come, If you can’t do the time don’t do the crime, In the good old summer time, In record time, In the fullness of time, In the nick of time, In the right place at the right time, In the wrong place at the wrong time, In your own time, It’s about time, It’s high time, It’s payback time, It’s time to call it a day, Just in time, Ahead of their time, Killing time, For the last time, Living on borrowed time, Long time no see, Lose track of time, Making good time, Make up for lost time, Matter of time, Once Upon A Time, One step at a time, Only time will tell, Out Of Time, Party time, Say kids, what time is it? (A catchphrase from Howdy Doody Show), One day at a time, There’s a time and a place for everything, There’s no time like the present, Till the end of time, and Time flies when you are having fun. And the one we hear all the time: I don’t have time for this.

It seems like there isn’t enough time in the day to get everything done. We do time management to see where we are wasting time or where we can save time. We make a list and prioritize what is most important to get done first.  Our lives revolve around time. But time is more than seconds, minutes and hours.  Time is a priceless commodity.  Once you spend it or even waste it, you can never get it back. Sometimes we put things off because we think we have more time. There was an older couple in town that I loved to go visit. They were not in church one Sunday and my mom suggested I ride my bike over to visit them. This was something I would do regularly, and they loved it when I came over. However, on this day, I decided that my TV program was more important, and I knew I would see them the next Sunday.  I never saw them alive again. If my memory serves me correctly, they were in a car accident that week; they died within a few days of each other. The things we think that matter the most in life may end up being our biggest regrets.

When someone moves into a facility all they have is time. We had a new resident move in, she had fallen in her apartment in the bathroom and laid there for two days before someone found her.  She wanted to go back to her apartment, but she knew she wasn’t safe there. Her biggest issue for staying was, as she rocked in her glider-rocker, “I don’t want to just rock, eat, sleep and die. I want to have fun and do things.” And have fun she did, she started the welcome committee, she helped plan outings and she was my little lady that stuffed chicken wings in her purse every month when we went to eat at the Ponderosa buffet.

Six months can mean different things depending on your situation.  Someone who is planning on getting married can’t wait.  It’s an exciting time.  Someone who has just been given six months to live has a completely different perspective. When a resident puts their call light on and then complains because it takes staff an “hour” to get there, to them it feels like forever even though it’s probably only 5-15 minutes. I had a resident in the Alzheimer’s unit hollering out. It was right before supper, and she was sitting by the nurse’s station.  I went over and asked if there was something she needed. She stopped hollering and said “I just want someone to sit with me and hold my hand.” The thought running through my head was “I don’t have time for this, I have to get everyone ready for supper”.  I sat down and held her hand. Tears ran down her face as she held tight to my hand. I was there for what seemed like hours, it was only about 5 minutes. She just needed to be seen.

Staff needs to feel we care as well.  Whenever it was my weekend to be week-end manager, things always seem to go south very quickly. It became a joke at morning meetings on Friday, Tammy is on this week-end, wonder what will go wrong.  I had a car stolen out of the parking lot, someone got their tires slashed, we had the police show up to arrest one of our aides, because apparently he was a known drug dealer in town, a family member charged another family member with kidnapping their mother, the phone lines went down, power went out and our generator blew up, we had a fire in the laundry room, and the list goes on. One weekend I was getting ready for church, and the phone rang.  I thought good grief, I haven’t even gotten to work yet.  They had several call-ins and the dishwasher in the kitchen had quit.  They were really hurting and knew I was probably getting ready for church but wondered if I could come in early.  Absolutely. I ran to the donut shop picked up 2 dozen donuts and headed to work.  I got to work, announced there were donuts in the dining room and got to work.  I missed church that day, but the staff felt someone saw they were hurting and showed up. I also never got one thing done on my must do list that Sunday. The list was waiting for me on Monday and I did get the list done, but helping staff was more important than my list.

Paperwork is important, planning activities is important, meetings are important but taking time to let residents and even staff feel seen is quality of life. It is more precious than anything else we can do. There is an old saying that says “Take Time to smell the coffee or Take time to smell the Roses. We are all in such a hurry. We don’t seem to have enough time in the day to get things done. The greatest gift we can give is the gift of our time.

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Tammy Point NAAP Leadership Team 2025