Is the time change coming up again already? If you’ve had enough, please head over to any of the multiple petitions here, here, and here to congress to stop this.
Please don’t try to convince me that Daylight Savings Time is good because “it stays lighter longer.” It’s light nearly the same amount of time Saturday versus Monday. The only difference, for a few weeks at least, is which end of the day you see that sunshine. In a few weeks, it nearly evens out, as the period of sunlight naturally gets longer.
The time change is major news, twice a year, every year.
There are some pretty compelling studies that show the amount of productivity lost each year as we have to make this adjustment. The most widely quoted stat is an economic toll for America of almost half a billion dollars each year. With stats like these, what are we thinking???
“Czeisler said that heart attack risk goes up 5 percent and motor vehicle crashes go up 17 percent immediately after Daylight Saving Time starts. “
I would vote for any credible candidate who included abolishing DST as part of their presidential platform. actually, the way this election season is going, I might even vote for any in-credible candidate with this platform.
Contrary to what you might have heard, the time does not change to benefit our agricultural sector. We don’t do it for the farmers. Farmers don’t love DST and- guess what- COWS DON’T TELL TIME!!!! They still have to be milked the same time every day, no matter what the clock says.
On the contrary, daylight savings time was actually set up to save fuel for our rapidly industrializing economy in the early 1900’s.
I grew up in Indiana, the land of no time change until 2006, and I can tell you, there is no logical reason that we torture ourselves like this in the modern world. We honestly did not have these two weeks of waking children and screwed up meal times that most of the rest of the nation puts up with semi-annually. Sadly, studies show that when Indiana converted to the insanity of the time change, energy consumption actually went up by about 1%.
At this point, being a Certified Professional Organizer ® and time management expert, I’m supposed to have a list of strategies for you to employ to get through this coming week. All the strategies in the world won’t be as good as stopping this silly practice, but here goes:
- Reset all of your analog and standard digital clocks before you go to bed on Saturday night. Your network connected devices (smart phones and most computers) will automatically reset themselves.
- Reset the clock in your car on Saturday evening as well. Or do what I do, and leave yourself a Post-It note on the dash to reset your clock, because that moment when you think you are really, really late? No fun.
- Take a nap if you can. Good luck.
- Don’t play that game with your spouse called, “What are you going to do with your extra hour?” For one thing, in the spring you “lose” an hour, so it’s moot. And the kiddos didn’t get the memo and aren’t going to actually give you an extra hour, so just deal with it.
- Seriously, try to plan a little lighter calendar than normal during the next week. It might actually take a week to feel like you are on the right schedule. Experts advise that this is probably not the week to schedule a major exam or competition, if at all possible. Go ahead and plan for a little cyberloafing. Everyone else is doing it.
- Unless otherwise advised by your doctor, take your medications on the new clock time ASAP. Some drugs like those for ADHD are particularly time sensitive, so just start working on the “new” clock right away. trying to delay or reschedule those meds might mean missed doses altogether.
- Tummies may be a bit off schedule, as well. Plan a slow-cooker meal to be ready when you return home from work. Be prepared with fresh fruits and veggies for healthy snacking rather than caffeine-rush and sugar-crash inducing snacks that might be your fallback coping mechanism.
- Make it a point to get outside this week. A mid-day or late-afternoon walk, especially in the milder and sunnier springtime weather, can promote better sleep.
- Check your smoke detector batteries. Because that is the only good that really comes out of this.
That’s all I’ve got for you, folks. Good luck out there.
