Activists say it’s time for a change

A precious commodity is slipping away from Americans like water through a sieve, and candidates for political office don’t seem to recognize the opportunity.

If President Bush and Sen. John Kerry were really on the ball, some say, they’d know one of the best carrots they could dangle in front of voters is the promise of more time.

Studies show that Americans work more hours per week and more weeks per year than most of their Western European peers. The United States is not among the 96 countries that mandate paid vacations from work. It’s not among the 163 countries that guarantee paid leave for childbirth.

It’s also not among the 84 countries that limit the length of the work week by law.

Those are just a few of the reasons that led to Take Back Your Time Day today. People alarmed about the constant demand on their time and the toll it’s taking on families, children and health last year designated Oct. 24 as a day to consider and possibly choose ways to reclaim some of that time.

“We’d love more time to be with our families, more time to do things in our communities,” says Paul Fosselman in Sandpoint. He’s an information technology consultant and advocate of sustainable living – living with less and getting more out of it. He’s trying to raise awareness of Take Back Your Time Day in Sandpoint. “I want to place the idea in the community and do a little watering.”

Fosselman’s focus on time is not unique. A movement to reclaim time as a personal possession is sweeping the United States, thanks to John deGraaf. The Seattle-based documentary television producer turned the common frustration for more time into a movement two years ago with publication of the book, “Take Back Your Time – Fighting Overwork and Time Poverty in America.”

“Polls show 50 percent of the public feels overworked and stressed for time,” deGraaf says. “We’re trying to get the country as a whole to focus on the issue.”

His book is a collection of essays from scholars, doctors, environmentalists, clergy and more on the price society pays for not respecting time. Contributors also offer suggestions on how people can reclaim time.

For example, scholar Juliet Schor, a former Harvard economist and author of “The Overworked American,” writes that the average American worker added 199 hours annually to the work schedule between 1973 and 2000. Her statistics are based on the federal Current Population Survey. Those hours translate to five extra weeks based on a 40-hour work week.

Schor theorizes that Americans’ appetite for larger houses, more possessions and bigger everything grew as more work hours added more money to their pockets. Maybe, she suggests, people could live with Formica kitchen counters instead of granite, if they could work less and spend more time with their families.

The Take Back Your Time movement is in its fledgling stage, but its following is growing as fast as time disappears. This year, at least 10 states have organized events to raise awareness and, eventually, support for the movement’s agenda.

The Inland Northwest’s activities are low-key. The Northwest Alliance for Responsible Media at Gonzaga University is distributing Take Back Your Time posters. Some pastors are incorporating a message of the value of time into their sermons. Informal discussion groups are meeting from Spokane to Sandpoint.

The agenda the movement is promoting is where lawmakers enter the picture. Take Back Your Time wants Election Day made a national holiday, paid family and medical leave part of the Family and Medical Leave Act, a minimum of three weeks vacation mandated for all workers and a federal cap on mandatory overtime.

DeGraaf and his dozen movement co-founders encourage people to take ownership of their time, rather than accept a lack of control.George Conrad in Post Falls cut back his lucrative law practice five years ago to pursue his real love: music. Career satisfaction was his goal. More time for his family was one of the move’s unexpected ripple effects.

“It was a great change,” Conrad says. “We changed our lifestyle, our priorities. I’m satisfied with less because I’ve gotten more. I get to spend a lot more time with our son and with (wife) Vi.”

Both Conrads teach Kindermusik, an early development-through-music program for kids from infancy to age 8. The work is rewarding, but dropped the Conrad family budget to the diet level.

“We had to rebudget,” Conrad says. “We have more time at home, work on the yard more, have great barbecues and parties. We get to use more of our time the way we want to.”

John Sahlin in Coeur d’Alene didn’t restructure his law practice with the aim of reclaiming time. But two years after he closed his office to work from home on flexible hours, Sahlin appreciates the time he has to help out at home and be with his 14-year-old daughter, Jordan.

“I can devote my full attention to her because I’m not distracted with stuff on my mind that I take home from work,” Sahlin says. “I didn’t have the expectation of quality of time, but it’s there. Jordan’s in volleyball. I’ve missed very few games.”

Time was Coeur d’Alene veterinarian Dave Gerber’s primary reason for closing his pet-care office 10 years ago. His phone often rang in the middle of the night with anguished pet owners asking for immediate help. He delivered plenty of puppies by C-section at 3 a.m. after working all day in his office. It took him four tries to see the movie “A River Runs Through It” with his family because work pulled him away.

“My kids were 12 and 15 and I didn’t know them,” Gerber says. “The business was doing well but the rest of my life wasn’t.”

Gerber walked away from his practice and became a veterinary consultant. He had time to attend his daughters’ events at school and to indulge his interest in art in the community.

“I wanted my life back,” he says. “And I got it.”

DeGraaf wants Gerber’s thinking to spread to every American household. He recently traveled to the Inland Northwest to speak at Gonzaga University and at the Sandpoint Library. About 200 people between the two communities listened to deGraaf’s observations that people are over-scheduling their time and their children’s time.

“Family dinners are more important to success in college than this or that activity,” he says. “We’re very concerned now with a push in school districts to eliminate recess. It’s crazy in terms of what we know about children and obesity.”

His ideas prompted plenty of thoughts. Lisa Cirac-Krause in Sandpoint latched onto deGraaf’s suggestion of a slow-food movement. Cirac-Krause runs Pita’s Eclectic Kitchen, a takeout Greek restaurant. Nothing she serves is precooked, so customers are warned they may have to wait 15 minutes for their food. Takeout, she says, doesn’t mean hurry, hurry, hurry.

“We try to slow down the eating experience, make it like home, try to make people as comfortable as possible while they wait,” Cirac-Krause says. “Hopefully, we can make people enjoy food rather than eat on the run.”

If Inland Northwesterners just talk about time together this Take Back Your Time Day weekend, movement supporters will know they’re heading in the right direction. Eventually, that conversation might grow into national concern that will reach the ears of lawmakers. DeGraaf said he will realize his goal when those lawmakers introduce legislation to safeguard Americans’ precious time.

“We do honestly believe the country is overworking and people don’t have the choice they should have,” deGraaf says. He admits that the Take Back Your Time movement demands too much of his time, but it’s an irony he can tolerate to spread his message.

“We’re just saying think about it,” he says. “Is what you’re doing with your time what you really want to be doing?”