How to Break Free From the COVID-19 Timewarp

SHORT VERSION: Time – in this new normal – will continue to accelerate unless you take action. Read below on why and how to reverse it.

TELESCOPING: If you are like me, it is practically unfathomable that exactly 2 months ago today I was eating a meal inside a restaurant – it feels like 2 years ago (and this may also explain some of the near-violent protests against stay-at-home orders: intuitively people feel like they’ve been trapped inside for years, not weeks). This phenomenon is called “telescoping” – certain memories grow larger in the rearview mirror with the passage of time. In my last post I predicted that there would be an inversion of the experience of time under the new normal of CO-19 and I am feeling it – are you?

THE VERTIGO EFFECT: Time for me now is racing by and accelerating into a jumble of unnamed days and few memorable moments. This – even while the stay-at-home changes of March 16 loom ever more significant, yet ever farther away. The “Vertigo Effect” or “Dolly Zoom” from filmmaking is in full effect here: as we race away from the massive shifts caused by COVID we simultaneously zoom backward into the nostalgic sunset of “normalcy.” As a side effect, many of my day-to-day activities have moved “off frame,” sidelined or subsumed by news and concern regarding CO-19.

(The Vertigo Effect or Dolly Zoom – is when filmmakers zoom in to a shot while simultaneously moving the camera quickly away. This results in a distortion of perspective where the person or object at the center of the screen stays the same size, but the objects (like a sunset) behind the person grow in size, even as the perspective shift causes items in the foreground to go off the frame.) See this short video my daughter created of this effect here:

https://youtu.be/bzpZceySjFI


THE REVERSE ZOOM: As I have written many times and share in my talks, “time lost is life lost… if we can’t remember it, it didn’t happen… you might as well have been dead.” How can we manage a reverse dolly zoom, racing forward to be present while zooming wider to bring in all the details? I think there are 5 key drivers that lead to highly recallable, data filled memories – here they are and some ideas on what to do differently to avoid the COVID Time Warp.

1. UNIQUENESS: break up the routine: do and try new things. Make or order dinner then walk outside and find a picnic table or bench within walking distance with a view and eat there (as I write this I’m sitting at a newly found outdoor table from a shuttered restaurant) - bring music (and wine if so inclined). Run outside in a hailstorm, time the lightening to thunder ratio with the kids. Research and visit nature preserves, hiking trails and open parks within your driving radius: hike and pack a picnic. Pick up a bocce or croquet set and play with consequences (looser cleans the kitchen). Roll down a grassy hill (my daughter)

2. BEAUTY: find beauty around you. Get outside (there is ample evidence that outdoor CO-19 transmission is close to zero for things like running, hiking, picnicking etc.) Pull out classic or well-loved music and tap into the memories. Look at old photos, send them to friends that are in them. Watch Planet Earth, Life, or Our Planet or rainy day classics like Redbeard or Babette’s feast. Read the classics like “The Brothers Karamazov “or my favorite “Wind, Sand and Stars.” Make beef Bourgogne the Julia Childs’ way, or pho soup, or Vietnamese lemon-grass chicken or a beef Wellington. Light candles for dinner or a bath. Write a poem, make it a video.

3. PHYSICAL INTENSITY: start training, get in shape, push yourself. Now that the weather is better, dust off your bike, your running shoes, your hiking boots, your canoe or camping gear. Plan a long ride / run / hike / trip. Pro-tip – when you are flush with “runner’s high” from your activity – make a call to someone that matters – a client, a sales prospect, and old friend. Your energy is transferable.

4. EMOTIONAL INTENSITY: Call old friends or better yet write them thank you notes and then call them. Share with the important people in your life what they have meant to you. On my blog I have a series called “People I Owe”. If you can afford it get a stack of 10 Or 20 $20 bills, and make that your tip for any delivery person or essential worker you come into contact with - for some people that can change their whole day. Conduct a semi-random Facetime or Zoom group of old or new friends or even invite a few strangers.

5. GET IN THE FLOW: What are you best at? What gets you into the “Flow”? What makes time stop, or fly by such that you say, “where did those 3 hours go?” Is that writing, drawing, painting, listening to music, driving, biking, running, hiking, debating, selling? Besides writing, one of my favorites is to make a music playlist that matches (somehow) the geography or architecture of a new city or new part of a city or village or natural area and then plan an exploratory walk… Hmmm I’ve never been to the Pilsen area of Chicago. Looks like I know what I’m doing tomorrow…

FINAL THOUGHT: TIME AND MONEY ARE FUNGIBLE. Some of these ideas may cost money and may be untenable depending on your financial situation but for those who still have their jobs and who are working safely from home saving money my advice is this: you have spent years of your life buying money with your time, perhaps now is a good point to buy some time with your money.