Saving Time

Time feels natural—an invisible background that governs clocks, calendars, and paychecks—but the book reveals that this feeling is historical work. The author argues that our modern experience of time was engineered: standardized, monetized, and moralized to serve industrial and imperial ends. From monastic bells to bossware, time became a tool for discipline and extraction. Recognizing that time is political—not just physical—is the book’s core insight.

Fungible time and the factory logic

You learn that "fungible time"—time treated as divisible and exchangeable, like currency—was created at the intersection of theology, plantation accounting, and Taylorist management. Monastic bell towers synchronized work and prayer; plantations converted enslaved labor into ledgers of days and hours, and Taylor’s stopwatch cemented a regime of measurable productivity. Once time became currency, every human minute could be bought or optimized (Marx’s “personified labor-time”).

That same logic appears in modern apps like Time Doctor and StaffCop, which monitor productivity minute by minute. Amazon warehouse scanners, Uber telematics, and gamified dashboards like Spinify turn lived experience into profit metrics. As Emily Guendelsberger reports, this system disciplines not only workers but their bodies—asking them to walk sixteen miles a day and perform tasks calibrated to the second.

Chronos and kairos — two clocks, two worlds

The book introduces two Greek conceptions of time: chronos, measurable linear time, and kairos, qualitative, opportune time. Chronos governs schedules, wages, and trade; kairos governs meaning and possibility. The author uses this contrast to explore how the same minute can be crushing or liberating depending on the frame. Chronos enables global coordination but also fuels exploitation and climate damage. Kairos offers moral and political openings—the chance to act amid uncertainty, as in protests or mutual aid rising during crisis moments.

If chronos is the spreadsheet, kairos is the spontaneous alignment of people and conditions that make change possible. Examples range from moss growing in an apartment (Robin Wall Kimmerer’s ecological kairos) to pandemic community care networks—a reminder that moral urgency and timing coexist beyond metrics.

The hierarchy of time: entrainment and inequality

Not all time counts equally. Entrainment—the synchronization of one person’s schedule to another’s—illustrates how inequality gets embedded in daily rhythms. Tourists in Bali or Ijen may rise early for breathtaking sunrises while miners awake even earlier to haul sulfur; the privileged rhythm dictates the subaltern’s hardship. Robert Goodin’s concept of “discretionary time” exposes the cruel joke of equality: everyone has 24 hours, but not the same freedom within them.

This hierarchy extends into urban life. Bay Area commuters lose hours each day to keep wealthier economies running. Like the winner in the card game Asshole who receives advantages in each subsequent round, early privilege compounds—in time as in wealth.

From self-Taylorism to communal alternatives

The factory stopwatch migrated to the self-help aisle. Personal Taylorism—Donald Laird’s call to measure eye movements or John Lee Dumas’s 100-day productivity sprints—shows how we internalized capital’s clock. Byung-Chul Han’s “achievement-subject” embodies this: today, you exploit yourself, driven by entrepreneurial culture that replaces solidarity with optimization. The author’s warning is clear—self-tracking isn’t freedom if it just reproduces external pressure.

That same logic extends to wellness industries measuring sleep, steps, and satisfaction, echoing Francis Galton’s eugenic tendency to rate human desirability. A politics of discretionary time begins when you ask: who benefits from my efficiency? Routine isn’t the enemy—unquestioned productivity is.

Reclaiming leisure and collective rhythms

Josef Pieper’s concept of vertical leisure reshapes rest as sacred attention rather than commodified retreat. In contrast to influencer retreats or luxury “slow watches,” public leisure once aimed for common good—WPA park programs, municipal pools, union halls. The author evokes racialized histories where leisure was segregated or destroyed to preserve white spaces (Stonewall pool burial). Today, mutual aid and organizations like the Nap Ministry reclaim rest as communal resistance, turning leisure into infrastructure for imagination and social resilience.

Time and power: the empire of clocks

From monasteries to Greenwich Mean Time, clock standardization enabled empire. Sandford Fleming’s zones and colonial administration turned time into governance. When Mao placed all China under Beijing time, the message was unity—and control. Giordano Nanni’s studies of colonial time reveal how indigenous rhythms were overwritten by imported schedules. Modern equivalents—corporate calendars and “flexibility” demands—continue this domination. The lesson: whose clock rules determines whose life becomes legible.

Temporal commons and resistance

Amid imposed rhythms, people carve out commons. Familects (Kathryn Hymes’s linguistic microcodes) and alternative schedules—like Twin Oaks Time—are acts of refusal. J. T. Roane’s idea of “plotting” and Fred Moten’s “study” show Black and marginalized communities creating hidden time spaces for survival. Processed World’s satire and gig-worker coordination show contemporary versions: shared humor and timing as mutual defense against control.

Temporal commons thrive on inside jokes, rituals, and collective pacing—small rehearsals for worlds less dominated by external clocks.

Unfreezing time: ecological and relational awareness

To “unfreeze” time, you learn to see nonhuman duration. Bergson’s duration and Marcia Bjornerud’s “timefulness” teach that rocks, tides, and moss hold living time. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s tale of moss upends ownership: you cannot buy centuries of growth. Observing birds via webcams or tide rhythms lets you perceive nonhuman agency and moral obligation. Environmental attentiveness transforms passive waiting into ethical participation.

Care, disability, and aliveness

Marilyn Waring and Selma James expose the erasure of care labor from economic accounts. Kathi Weeks reframes “wages for housework” as political demand, not plea. Sara Hendren’s “crip time” and Hartmut Rosa’s “resonance” expand those ethics: real life extension means relational depth, not longevity metrics. When you treat time as interdependence—supporting others’ capacities—you extend shared aliveness.

Halving time: the ethic of doubt and place

The book ends at the shore—with king tides and bioregions—as metaphors for living in the present gap “between past and future” (Arendt). Halving time means pausing the rush toward outcomes and cultivating intimate attention to place. Doubt becomes creative rather than paralyzing; uncertainty opens kairotic space for choice. You act locally, not to lengthen time but to enrich it.

Final takeaway

Time is not a fact to measure—it is a relation to shape. When you cease to treat minutes as money, you begin to discover how shared, attentive life makes time expansive rather than scarce.

The author traces the birth of modern time discipline from monastic bells to digital monitors. The shift from lived duration to mechanical measurement turned moments into tradable units of profit. Taylorism and plantation accounting made human effort legible, setting the stage for 21st-century algorithmic supervision.

From factory to laptop

Industrial managers discovered that dividing tasks into minutes increased control. Modern versions use bossware—Time Doctor, StaffCop—to grade employee minutes. The same logic crosses into creative work; even screen time analytics measure productivity not presence. 'Moments are the elements of profit' remains true but now invisible behind code.

Embodied consequence

Guendelsberger’s report on Amazon reveals bodily intensification: devices timing tasks to seconds, removing rest. Workers live inside machines’ expectations. The author aligns this with Braverman’s critique: automation masks human choices that make discipline feel natural. Once you see minutes as moral instruments, resistance starts with demanding discretion—time free from metrics.

Chronos measures; Kairos opens. Chronos tracks the world’s economic heartbeat; Kairos offers ethical openings that defy predictability. The author uses these two clocks to distinguish control from creativity.

Chronos as infrastructure

Global commerce required chronos—time zones, standardized hours, supply chains. From Sandford Fleming’s coordination to container ports, measurable time expanded efficiency. But it also depleted imagination, fueling both industrial output and ecological exhaustion.

Kairos as lifeline

Kairos resides in uncertain openings: moments of moral clarity or revolt. The author cites uprisings after George Floyd’s murder or spontaneous mutual aid as kairotic ruptures. You cannot plan Kairos; you can recognize and enter it. Paying attention—like noticing moss or tides—prepares you for action when possibility appears.

Your time never stands alone; it syncs with others’ power. Entrainment explains how schedules map inequality—whose clock others follow. From sulfur miners adjusting to tourists’ sunrise filming, to domestic workers or commuters aligning with employers, unequal temporalities sustain economies.

The cruel joke of equality

Robert Goodin’s 'discretionary time' shows that 24 hours mean vastly different freedoms. Structural inequality makes some people’s leisure others’ labor. Like the card game Asshole, advantages accumulate with position.

Redefining fairness

You revalue equality by redesigning time itself—through overtime regulation, childcare support, and projects like the Magnolia Mother’s Trust. Justice isn’t merely pay equity but temporal autonomy.

Industrial efficiency migrated into personal ethics. Donald Laird’s 1925 "Efficiency" manuals encouraged readers to become their own supervisors. Today’s productivity coaches—Tim Ferriss, Kevin Kruse—extend the logic: measure everything, optimize forever.

The inner boss

Byung-Chul Han’s 'achievement-subject' captures this: people internalize competition until self-exploitation feels voluntary. When structure replaces community, exhaustion becomes identity. The rhetoric of freedom (‘be your own CEO’) hides economic precarity and social withdrawal.

Alternative metric

The author invites you to reframe efficiency: what if productivity meant building commons? Experiment with refusal—take rest not as failure but collective practice. Time regained through solidarity beats any personal optimization streak.

Josef Pieper called leisure vertical time: moments of contemplation and wonder rather than recovery for more labor. The book revives that spirit, contrasting commodified retreats with civic leisure—parks, libraries, and union halls.

Public versus purchased slowness

Modern leisure often appears as curated experience—slow tourism, influencer wellness—but that privatization excludes many and erases history. The author narrates segregation-era examples, including buried pools to avoid integration, revealing leisure as racialized privilege.

Rest as political infrastructure

Tricia Hersey’s Nap Ministry reframes rest as reparative resistance. Rest builds imaginative capacity, not just energy. Supporting public leisure, fair scheduling, and paid leave cultivates vertical time for everyone, not just the few.

Not all time is sold. Families, communities, and movements craft private temporalities—familects, rituals, counter-clocks—that preserve dignity and meaning. Kathryn Hymes’s coffee term 'hog' or the commune’s alternative clock show how coordination can reject official time.

Hidden transcripts

J. T. Roane’s 'plotting' and Fred Moten’s 'study' describe how Black communities create time-space for survival under domination. These temporal commons are incubators of freedom.

Refusal as rehearsal

Carole McGranahan defines refusal not as withdrawal but prefiguration—acting out better rhythms now. Processed World and gig-worker coordination embody this rehearsal: art, humor, and timing reimagine collective life.

Henri Bergson’s concept of duration and Marcia Bjornerud’s 'timefulness' move time beyond human schedules. Rocks, moss, and birds carry memory. Seeing them as active participants expands ethics.

Unfreezing perception

The author’s beach at Pescadero teaches geological humility: each pebble is a temporal archive. Robin Wall Kimmerer’s moss story exposes how ownership fails against living history—money can’t buy centuries. Attending to ecosystems unfreezes time from market abstraction.

Practical shift

Watch a tree, bird, or tide regularly. That practice turns consumption into care. Timefulness reconnects politics with stewardship, emphasizing co-created future rather than extraction.

Marilyn Waring’s and Selma James’s interventions show that care, though foundational, remains invisible to economics. The book reframes this omission as temporal violence—devaluing unpaid hours that sustain society.

Revaluing reproductive labor

Waring’s hypothetical housewife 'Cathy' symbolizes uncounted work, while Kathi Weeks sees 'wages for housework' as political fiction that reveals system inequalities. This discussion intersects with modern UBI debates: whether to generalize support or recognize care specifically.

Crip time and resonance

Sara Hendren’s 'crip time' celebrates bodies resisting uniform tempo; Hartmut Rosa’s 'resonance' defines aliveness as relational richness. Instead of chasing longevity or productivity, nurture networks that make life vibrantly interdependent. Revaluing care extends shared time for all.

The book concludes with ecological vision: halving time—creating symbolic pause between past and future—where freedom emerges. By slowing down, you reclaim agency within planetary crisis.

King tides and bioregional insight

The California King Tides Project visualizes futures now: waves flooding ordinary spaces become rehearsals for action. Bioregional observation at Maury Island connects local habitats to geological memory, cultivating responsibility.

Doubt as creative time

Following Arendt, the author sees doubt as productive—a space where kairos unfolds. Halving time means stopping the automatic rush to the next task, noticing transformation already underway. Saving time becomes tending time—sharing, not hoarding it.