Today’s guest post comes from Anna.

Time.

We never seem to have enough of it and it goes by too quickly. There aren’t enough hours in the day, days in the week, months in the year. Pick your favorite saw or cliché about time, and insert it .

A few weeks back I found myself doing something I never thought possible – creating time. This year’s election had me fired up enough that I felt I had to put my ideals into actions, time or no time. I knew this would mean giving my precious time as a gift in the hopes that I could defeat my foe. I found an organization working for the same goal and signed up for volunteer shifts. The shifts were three hours each – a large chunk out of anyone’s day, given the pulls and pushes of modern life. After working a few shifts I cajoled the staff into finding tasks I could do from home a little each day instead of going into the office for a scheduled shift. I could find an hour or so each day much more easily than 3 hours at a crack once a week; it became even easier when I found I could break that hour out into 2 or 3 smaller chunks of time in my day.

One evening, as I was doing my volunteer tasks, Husband told me about an article he was reading regarding our investment, as a culture, in being busy. We have created the construct of “not enough time” as a thing oddly valued and being “busy” as a status symbol (both tied to our need to feel “important”). The article went on to talk about ways to break out of the “too busy” trap. Along with just plain-old not over-scheduling or creating “busy-ness,” the article encouraged you to think in smaller increments of time for activities which can be slid into your day more easily.

Well shoot, that’s what I had done all on my own. With a bit of chronological alchemy, I created time.

Having thrown of the Shackles of Busy-ness, I propose the following Declaration of Time Independence:

When in the Course of Human Events, it becomes necessary for One People to dissolve the Chronological Bands which have connected them with another, and to Assume among the Powers of the Earth, the separate and equal hours to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature’s Clock entitle them, a Decent Respect to the Schedules of Mankind requires that they should declare the Time Allowances which impel them to Disengagement.

We hold these chronologies to be time-evident, that all days are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable increments, that among these are Quiescence, Calmness and the pursuit of Laziness.

That to secure these breathers, clocks are ignored among People, deriving their just hours from the consent of the scheduled, That whenever any Form of Time becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Schedules, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its appointments in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Idleness and Happiness. Leisure, indeed, will dictate that Agendas long established should well be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that Mankind are more disposed to Schedule, while Calendars are Sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the timetables to which they are accustomed. But when a long day of Abuses and Usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Busy-ness evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Over-Schedule-ism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Agenda, and to provide new Calendars for their future tranquility.

What might you declare your independence from, if you could?

Today’s guest post comes from Clyde.

I have hit on a sure-fail marketing scheme, without even participating in a meeting that never ends, well, except for the one in my mind.

I am going to market a set of CD’s called “Sounds to Edit By.” It would hold the following discs, all of which I must confess I own and find perfect for editing:

• One hour of falling rain with thunder in the distant background.
• Haydn Symphony 101, “The Clock”
• “Inner Voices” by R. Carlos Nakai (Navaho flute music)
• Haydn Symphony 94, “The Surprise” (I keep missing the surprise)
• Gregorian Chant
• “In Concert: Credence Clearwater Revival.” (This is to clear the palette.)
• Plainsong Chant
• “Enya” (I borrow it from Sandy) (No, really; it’s hers, not mine; really.)
• “Canyon Consort” by Paul Winter
• One hour of ocean waves

I realize that my potential audience is small, maybe just me and Robin, Bonnie L., and an astounding number of my former students who are editors and writers of various forms.
But who would have thought there was such a large consumer base for high-priced coffee that, to me, tastes much like battery acid! Or that people would buy bottles of water at 10,000 times the cost of a glass from their tap! Or that karaoke would still be slowly lingering to its eagerly anticipated death! So maybe my idea would work. A post script: I would add to my box set one last CD I don’t own containing only “Amazing Grace” played on bagpipes.

Browsing pointlessly in our pointless public library yesterday, I spotted a book title that jumped out at me: “Florida for Dummies.” Go ahead, write your own punchline.

But there was a success I would have never foreseen, the Dummy Books. Do they hold meetings trying to analyze their potential audience:

• “Someone who listens to Limbaugh?”
• “Well, no, not that dumb; has to be able to read.”
• “Voted for Sarah Palin?’
• “And watches ‘Dancing wit the Star’.”
• “And is a NASCAR fan.”
• “A Cubs fan for sure.”
• “No, a Yankees fan.”

Maybe they just envision Homer Simpson and Jessica Simpson.

But more power to them; not that we English teachers would ever approve of writing concisely and precisely, using graphic elements effectively. I have used a couple of the books, maybe three or four, to quickly overview a topic. I thought of some I could write:

• “Intelligence for Dummies.” But on which end of the spectrum am I an expert?
• “Editting for Dummys”
• “Left-Handedness for Dummies,” meaning for right-handed people.
• “Baboons for Dummies”
• “Lefse and Cardboard for Dummies” (How to distinguish between them)
• “Living with Germans for Dummies” (And who else would?)
• “Michele Bachmann for Michele Bachmann”

What Dummies book do you need?
What Dummies book would you write?