By giving the reader a better understanding of time, the book offers ideas to manage and reduce unhealthy time practices in our society and in also our lives.
The word ‘time’ is the most used noun in the English language, followed by ‘year’ in third place and ‘day’ in fifth. This undoubtedly shows our obsession with time for a lot of very good and practical reasons, but also very unhealthy practices.
Mastering time has been a crucial tool for the evolution of our modern civilization. However, it has also led to many bad habits, frustrations and inefficiencies both on a societal and individual level. We’re constantly driven by deadlines and goals for the future, rarely living consciously and mindfully in the present.
In Search Of Time presents time from ten different lenses ranging from physics, history, philosophy, anthropology to art, business and politics, biology and psychology. The author aims to bring us closer to nature and our experience of time by looking at it from different perspectives to improve our understanding of what time is and what it is not. He then encourages us to use that knowledge to improve how we organise ourselves around time and improve our lives.
Why did he write the book? “Humans have been puzzled by the concept of time for thousands of years, and a lot of books have been written about it. All time-related books, however, are looking at it through one narrow lens - be it physics, neuroscience, philosophy or something else. So far, no books have been dealing with time in a truly holistic way to honour the multifaceted nature of the topic - so I decided to write that book.”
Jacob Dahl is a Senior Partner Emeritus at McKinsey & Co, a board member and an investor. He has an MSc in Economics from Copenhagen University, and has worked as a management consultant for 26 years.
In Search of Time will be published on 24th November 2022, by LID Publishing.
This book would make an excellent Christmas present for the person in your life who thinks about time.
