
A Monday Is a Tuesday Is a Sunday as Covid-19 Disrupts Internal Clocks - pseudolus
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/a-monday-is-a-tuesday-is-a-sunday-as-covid-19-disrupts-internal-clocks/
======
dboreham
I'm having the Groundhog Day experience: every day is the same. I'm having
difficulty determining how long in the past any given event occurred,
presumably because normally that process is aided by time anchors (e.g the
week before spring break). That said, it feels as if this "every day is the
same" situation is better somehow. Less cognitive load in figuring out "what
to do"; less effort expended planning future activities; much easier to work
consistently on projects (all sorts of home improvement projects that have
been on the todo list for years are now completed). It feels like being 12
years old to some extent.

~~~
adaisadais
I was feeling the same way until I started jogging in the mornings. It fires
my mind up and the endorphins help keep the mind sharp throughout the day.

~~~
milkytron
Just started this today.

Prior, I had been jogging in the evenings, but my asthma had been getting
really bad the past week (probably because the grass is pollinating) so I
figured it'd be worth switching it up.

Today I've been much more productive, and was more productive earlier in the
day, which is nice.

I also hope it helps me fall asleep earlier. Prior, I was falling asleep at
roughly 1am and feeling a bit dazed in the morning.

------
Slippery_John
The article touches on this, but it's very important to be aware that your
retrospective perception of time is highly dependent on the number of new
experiences you have in a given time frame. Years went longer when you were a
kid because so much of the world was new to you.

If you want the weeks/months/years to feel more dense then the answer is to do
new things as often as possible. Learn something new, try something new, read
something new, go somewhere new. Going to a new park or hiking a new trail is
a great way to bookend a week that will help keep your weeks feeling like
weeks. Making new recipes and trying new foods can also help, if less so -
I've personally slowly been trying every variety of coffee available to me
over the course of the lockdown. So every few days I have a new memorable
thing engaging multiple senses, and I'm learning to appreciate the nuances of
something I used to largely mindlessly consume. I also have certain activities
pegged to certain days to try to keep some perspective of the week as it
moves, e.g. study Wednesday, board game Friday, D&D Sunday, etc.

All this had definitely helped me control my retrospective perception of time.
Managing my prospective perception has proven to be far more challenging, if
anybody has tips there I'd be appreciative.

------
nathanaldensr
Or maybe we're just reverting to how things _should_ be. Maybe our internal
clocks were disrupted by the artificial five-day eight-hour work week.

~~~
booleandilemma
No, this feels unnatural to me. I miss going to an office and interacting with
people face to face instead of over the phone.

I’ve been spending most of my time cooped up in my apartment like a hermit,
ordering food online and going outside on weekends. Every day feels the same.
The sooner this ends the better.

~~~
emptyfile
As opposed to the usual grind of commuting and spending 8 hours a day in the
office? I really don't get it.

I'm back in the office today after 2.5 months of remote work and it really
bums me out. 1 hour of my life daily spent on my commute because colleagues
aren't disciplined enough to communicate/work remotely and need a babysitter
looking over their shoulder.

~~~
0xJRS
I don't get it either. This is by far the most productive i've ever been at
work and on personal projects. I don't miss spending 60+ minutes in my car 5x
a week to sit in a cube with headphones on or sit in a meeting where we all
look at a shared screen on our laptops... I start my workday when I wake up
and finish working at the same time i'd normally be arriving home after my
drive.

~~~
bobthepanda
Not everyone spends 60+ minutes in a car? My commute is a 20-30 minute bus
ride, which is just long enough to mentally separate "home" and "work." Plus
since someone else is driving I can do basically anything I want to pass the
time, other than reading a book since that gives me motion sickness.

I still have the same meetings I had before, just now I get to stare at a tiny
13-inch screen and squint instead of having it projected onto a wall at a
reasonable size.

In general I would like offices to move to "remote if you want so long as
you're meeting your work KPIs", but I would hate fully remote work.

~~~
dougmwne
In the USA being able to use public transit is very rare and most commutes in
major cities are long. I used to have the good fortune of being able to
commute by train for 20-30 minutes and had the option of biking as well. I
loved that commute but I fully recognize most people are not so fortunate. I
had co-workers in the same office who drove 2 hours each way.

------
jedberg
When lockdown started we stopped enforcing bedtimes and turned off all alarms.
We were in the lucky position where the kids (3 and 5) are young enough not to
have any zoom meetings, and I don't have any morning meetings.

Our family shifted to going to bed around 3am and I would wake up around
10am/11am and kids would wake up around 1pm.

We actually had to start enforcing bedtimes again because we noticed we were
shifting to a 25 hour day. We got to the point where the kids were up till
about 6am before we just went cold turkey and woke them up early so they would
get tired sooner.

But our family are clearly night owls. We're now enforcing a 1am bedtime for
the kids, and my wife and I are going to bed around 3am, and then we all wake
up between 10am/11am.

~~~
nefitty
What’s your plan for when they start school?

~~~
jedberg
If in person school actually happens, or the Zooms are in the morning, we'll
start shifting back a couple weeks beforehand. We've taken them to other time
zones before and they are pretty normal as far as shifting about one hour a
day.

------
cpascal
> Nearly 50 percent of people experienced time dragging during March, whereas
> about 24 percent perceived it to be speeding up.

For me it's been a paradoxical blend of the two, months seem to drag on
forever, but the week blazes by. Every time we get to Friday it feels as if
Monday was just a day or two ago.

Bizarre.

~~~
gnulinux
Exactly the same for me. It feels like time is passing extremely fast, but at
the same time it's the same "late March" that is being dragged for ages. Last
week I told my therapist that it feels like I meet her every 2 hours. It
really does feel this way. Suddenly it's monday, suddenly it's friday,
suddenly it's monday again.

And I'm living alone with a cat. I can't imagine how this is with people
living with a whole bunch of children.

~~~
cgriswald
Actually it’s my kid that keeps me knowing what day it is since she still has
classes and we have scheduled chores.

------
awillen
I was taking a sabbatical when this all started, so thankfully I've already
begun to perceive time through important milestones like taking the trash out
on Tuesday night and giving my dogs flea pills at the end of every month.

Really gives life meaning, y'know?

~~~
xyzzy_plugh
I'm in the same boat and frankly I'm not sure what's worse to my internal
clock: not having anything to do or not having anywhere to go.

------
guyzero
Honestly I've felt this. way for a decade - when I moved to the south Bay Area
from Canada I no longer had any meaningful weather and it very much disrupts
your sense of time and history.

~~~
Xcelerate
I noticed this as well. Living in California, it’s like the passage of time
seems to have halted since not much outside changes day to day. It’s so
strange compared to having seasons, where it felt like each year had a well
defined start and end. (Not that I’m complaining; I prefer the sunshine.)

------
seanwilson
Maybe it's my own bias, but I find it tiresome that people assume that it's
the majority opinion that most people don't like working from home and most
people miss going into the office.

Random recent report I found that shows working from home might be more
popular than some people assume:

[https://www.newsweek.com/54-percent-americans-want-work-
remo...](https://www.newsweek.com/54-percent-americans-want-work-remote-
regularly-after-coronavirus-pandemic-ends-new-poll-shows-1501809)

"An IBM survey released on Friday found that 54 percent of the 25,000 adults
polled would like to be able to primarily work from home and 75 percent would
like the option to do it occasionally. Once businesses can reopen, 40 percent
of people responded that they feel strongly their employer should offer opt-in
remote work options."

~~~
ulisesrmzroche
The majority of people including me like ocasional work from home, I did that
pre pandemic and it was great.

The majority opinion here is that offices - and face to face human interaction
- are useless and Mother Nature naturally selected wrong

Destroy all hugs

------
rconti
I miss the office and the routine, but frankly, my days go by much FASTER when
working from home. Instead of being stranded away from home for 9 hours, I get
to sleep in, and dip in and out of work more frequently. I work later in the
day, but it's broken up by various things in the house; feed the cats, wife
comes home from work, etc.

Obviously it depends on the day, but some days in the office it would be noon,
and the end of the day would feel a positively unimaginable amount of time
away.

------
tsycho
In the show "Downton Abbey", I think in season 1, Maggie Smith (think royal
old lady) says, "What's a weekend?"

[https://youtu.be/zhfpBW-nUWk](https://youtu.be/zhfpBW-nUWk)

For very different reasons, we all feel the same now :)

~~~
AnIdiotOnTheNet
Speak for yourself. Some of us still had to go in to work through this whole
thing.

------
semireg
I’ve always used “days are long, years are short” to talk about raising
children. Pulling our two year old out of daycare makes you really reflect on
how slowly time moves for them when their only concerns seems to be legos and
applesauce. But then you look at the two years they’ve existed and it feels
like a blink of an eye.

~~~
godot
IMO, when I really think about the phrase "days are long, years are short", it
seems like what it's saying, or maybe it's a more depressing way to interpret
it, is that "you're not doing anything special/memorable in your days" \--
hence the days feel long, but after they've passed, it feels short because
there wasn't anything in particular that was memorable to the parents.
However, do keep in mind that a lot of everyday experience like walks in the
parks that are nothing special to the parents, are very special for the kids.

We have a two year old as well, and it certainly feels tough -- it's not like
you can travel the world with a toddler (at least, it's out of our abilities
range, haha. Some people can do it, I'm sure.), so it's all about living the
everyday life (for now, until they're older) and making the most of it. SIP
doesn't make it any easier too. Try to at least make the weekends interesting!
Park walks are always possible, and a lot of outdoorsy nature type places are
possible to go to also, just don't go to the super crowded places.

~~~
semireg
We're having a really good time! We just welcomed our second son into the
family last Saturday. That day WOOSHED by, and certainly memories were made.
Fwiw, I don't find the situation depressing at all. I'm loving the slow-fast-
hybrid time with our children. It just "is" what it is.

------
caseysoftware
A couple weeks ago, my team and I determined it was still March 97th and I'm
sticking to it.

------
bencollier49
Friday night drinks, Sunday roasts and a walk on a Saturday help to keep
anything working in sensible cadences, I find.

~~~
aaron-santos
After a few weeks of oatmeal time, I employed the same strategy. Monday night
I call the folks. Tuesday is music night. I'm learning Let It Go on the
recorder to play for my niece. Wednesday is reading night. Thursday is movie
night. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday are all open. Every other weekend is
virtual board game night with friends.

I like having something to look forward to. It provides enough structure that
the weeks have a rhythm. However, each week is more or less the same. If that
ever becomes too much, I'll insert some events with monthly structure.

~~~
war1025
We've started doing a Skype call with my mom and my brother's family every
Sunday evening.

It adds a bit of a milepost to the week, which is nice.

Also, this is the most I've talked to my brother in probably a decade. It's
been really nice actually. I hope we keep it up indefinitely.

------
ptero
Day of the week might be a useful sync to keep, but for most people (certainly
for me), the time of the day is _way_ more important.

There is a risk that sleep/awake cycles float once rigid schedules disappear.
This happened to me once in grad school during a semester when I had a
fellowship, so did not have to teach and could just work on the thesis. While
first thought was "why should I care, I can still work the same" this quickly
resulted in a huge loss of productivity until I forced a correction. An hour
or two each way is nothing (in fact may be good as one adjusts to a more
natural schedule), but I would guard aggressively against switching to a
nocturnal lifestyle. My 2c.

------
every
A small sample of retirement. The seasons become your timepiece...

------
globular-toast
It doesn't say whether these people are working or not, and whether they were
working before quarantine. If you were a housewife before quarantine I can't
imagine things seem much different. But if, like my brother, you were a
mechanic and now you're stuck at home with no real ability to practise your
skills then it would feel very different. I am working at home every day and
feel absolutely no different in terms of time.

~~~
war1025
My wife stays home with the kids and she made the comment at the beginning of
all this that the most frustrating thing was all the people posting about how
hard it was to be home all the time or reaching out to see how she was doing.

From her perspective, very little about her day to day life actually changed.

The main thing we had to adjust to is that we couldn't go to stores anymore as
a way to get out of the house. We replaced that with taking walks and
socializing with our neighbors.

Monday she went to the fabric store for the first time in three months. She
was pretty excited about that.

------
non-entity
It was mostly like that for me prior to coronavirus except for the the weekend
which provided me with enough novelty to break the monotony of the week.

But yeah stay-at-home destroyed that, everyday is effectively the same, and
despite me planning some grand productivity at the beginning of it all, I've
basically done nothing.

------
deskamess
All I know is we started lock down Mar 15. If Ken Jennings streak started on
Mar 15, he is still championing.

~~~
jedberg
Technically he'd be losing today. If they did a show every day. If they only
did the shows five days a week, then yes, he'd still be the champion.

------
jdeisenberg
It would be interesting to re-do this study on Mental Representations of
Weekdays:
[https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...](https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0134555)

------
danharaj
Personally I'm on Monday 68

~~~
sneakernets
Still in Smarch.

~~~
kps
Today is the 9766th of September 1993.

~~~
vardump
Can't believe that was over 26 years ago!

In case someone didn't get the reference,
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eternal_September)

------
bdcravens
Even though I’ve been working from home the entire time, I can’t shake the
feeling that I’m approaching the end of summer vacation (43 with no kids so it
has been a long time since that was relevant to me)

------
mshaler
COVID on My Back

Well I’m running COVID on my back I've been hiding COVID on my back Avoiding
maskless spreaders COVID on my back And the victim? Well he won’t come back

I've been running Zoomday Doomsday Whatstheday Blursday Fryday Blursday
Zoomday

What have I done? What have I done?

Yes, I'm running Down the WFH track Won't you help me? COVID on my back It
will catch me If I dare drop back Won't you give me All the f*cks I lack?

What have I done? What have I done?

------
csours
The only thing pinning my week down is Twitch streams - certain people
broadcast on certain days.

------
knzhou
I've just decided that my weekend days are Wednesday and Saturday -- on
Wednesdays in particular I get to waste as much time on HN as I want! You
don't need to work 5 consecutive days every week, now you can do what works
for you.

------
chmaynard
Is this really important research? I think not. Scientific American used to be
a serious science magazine with very high standards. Probably to stay in
business, it has morphed into the pop-science tabloid it is today. Sad.

------
boromi
Can anyone explain to science behind why some people naturally prefer to stay
up as late as possible? For me I prefer to go to bed very late 4am.The
Coronavirus has enabled me to be more productive on my schedule

~~~
wanderr
I think there are many different reasons why this happens. For me, Delayed
Sleep Phase Syndrome is a pretty ideal match to what happens for me naturally,
which is to say that my body seems to be on a ~26 hour cycle. The WFH
situation has not made a difference for me being able to keep a schedule that
works better for me because: meetings.

