A kettle sits in my front garden, inside a wedge of polystyrene in a cardboard box. I know for sure it is a kettle, because I justbought a new one. On Taobao.
The piercing whistle of the old one has ushered in a new dawn of tinnitus that makes it even more difficult than usual to hold a coherent thought in my head. So that’s why there is a kettle in the garden. But that’s not the only item sitting amid the straggly weeds that herald springtime.
Each afternoon, a man in a little square box on wheels screeches into our driveway, like an F1 pilot over the finish-line.
He then either turfs packages onto the path, or yeets them over the hedge. If it has a “fragile” label on the front, he throws it at the front porch.
Mostly, this is fine. Ever since Fresh Hippo (盒马) launched its 24-hour delivery service from Taobao, the most mundane of items arrive daily. Gone are the days of exotic parcels. Today, apart from the kettle, my kuaidi friend hurled tins of tomato pulp, five kilos of wholewheat flour and two bags of cat litter at the front door. Other exciting purchases include toilet cleaner, tins of tuna, and toothpaste.
The commonplace elements of the weekly grocery shop of bygone days now arrive near my doorstep at the click of a keypad.
Think of all the time I save! Gone are the sensory assaults that were supermarket trips. No more choice paralysis over which brand of washing powder to choose from the endless aisle of options.
But where exactly does all this extra time manifest in my life? I feel just as busy as ever. Certainly, over the last few years, the importance of self-care and downtime has come to the forefront of public consciousness, while the mere thought of having an extra chunk of time for rest and relaxation is delightful.
And yet, this time gained by not traveling to, or parking at, or whizzing around grocery stores every day has not translated into a more manicured garden. I have not used it to revamp my moribund exercise routine. The novel that lives somewhere in my subconscious mind is no closer to existence in the physical realm than it was before the kuai di delivery man took over my shopping duties.
I am suffering from the modern-day affliction of “time poverty”. This term, coined by Cassie Holmes, PhD, author of Happier Hour: How to Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time, and Focus on What Matters Most, refers to the modern phenomenon of having too much to do, and not enough time to do it.
Now, to be fair, I am my own worst enemy in this respect. In order to stay motivated and operational, I need to have my plate piled high with quests and sub quests. Otherwise, I will watch “Come Dine With Me” ‘til the cows come home and do absolutely nothing. Having too much free time, paradoxically, can be stressful and lead to lower productivity.
But still, I must have saved a good 30 minutes by ordering my kettle online, and this week I discovered that my kuai di friend will even lob a bottle of contact-lens solution out of his three-wheeler; another 30 minutes a month to add to my discretionary time allowance. So where is it all?
Dr. Holmes suggests that the secret to increasing satisfaction with the downtime I (apparently) have begins with cataloguing it, and then “hunting for waste”. By conducting a discretionary time audit, we can become more conscious of where, when and how we spend the free time that we currently enjoy, and then tweak it to maximise its potency.
So, I gave this a try. And sure enough, the evening meals, revenge procrastination deep-dives, and “Come Dine With Me” marathons add up. All told, there is a good two hours of downtime that I do not adequately account for nor appreciate in my day, which is quite frankly, tragic.
The good news is that awareness is the first step towards resolution. The Doctor has a plethora of suggestions for maximising downtime, one of which includes outsourcing as many time-consuming tasks as possible, but since that is what led me to her in the first place, I will share another nugget of wisdom to launch you into a downtime revolution. Apply a “happiness filter” to your commitments, prioritising that which brings you joy and pencilling in “do nothing” as well, to prevent the risk of over committing.
One side of my brain decries this as ludicrous and yet it possesses a certain seductive allure. Scheduling time for rest and reflection finally locks down the missing hours now the purview of my kuaidi-lobbing delivery man.
It’s not that the time saved by this and other outsourcing tactics vanishes into the ether, it is more a mindset issue. Becoming conscious of how and when we spend our time allows us to better use it to find fleeting moments of happiness.
The thud of a package slamming into the front door, or bouncing across the garden is music to my ears. It is the sound of free time pinging into my day. Modern life is changing at an unprecedented rate.
Just like the kuaidi van burns rubber down the driveway, it can feel like life is speeding towards some invisible finish line. Constant change and a frenetic pace can make us forget the boon that comes with living in an ever-accelerating world.
So get your cheese delivered, buy your veggies online, eat, drink and be merry without setting a foot outside the door.
But don’t let those minutes spared vanish into the doom-scrolling vortex. Try a time audit. Take stock of where and when you spend your precious moments and then tweak to the max.
I am so grateful for any extra minutes to any day, and my delivery friend, upon reflection, has provided me with far more of these than any other innovation of our time.
It is with gratitude in my heart, that I retrieve the kettle, the milk, and the teabags from the garden, and brew a cuppa to the health of the bringer of time wealth, the kuaidi delivery guy.
