Transition Anxiety

By Martha Beck

Woman hanging from gymnastics rings, tickled by a feather

You're so absorbed in the moment that you don't realize it's passed. The meeting's over, the party's pooped, it's time to drop what you're doing and move on to the next thing. And yet you keep hanging on… Here's Martha Beck, in the nick of time, to explain how to get unstuck.

Emma is a poster girl for Newton's first law of motion: Once she starts doing something, she just keeps doing it until acted upon by some external force. Each day when Emma's alarm clock rings, she drowsily hits the snooze button several times. The shower, when she finally gets there, is so steamy and fragrant, she lingers twice as long as strictly necessary. She dresses hurriedly, only to check the mirror and change. And so it goes: Coffee savoring takes 15 minutes; lipstick experimentation, five minutes; car key searching, another 10. Emma often arrives at the office late—but that's okay, because once there, she works into the night, until an external force in the form of her frustrated husband calls to see if she's alive. Emma stays up late to offer compensatory companionship, ensuring that in the morning, when the alarm clock rings, she'll be too tired to get up.

People either think Emma is an inconsiderate laggard or they shrug off her chronic difficulty making transitions, give her lavish time cushions, and judge her based on anything but punctuality.

There's a key difference between people who become irritated with Emma and those who share Emma's inability to segue from one thing to the next. The first group has what is known as a monochronic time sense. They see time as fixed, rigid and absolute. On the other side of the spectrum, folks who are polychronic see time as loose and elastic. Any moment, to a polychrone, is capable of holding many things. Which of these descriptions (borrowed from anthropologist Edward T. Hall) fits you best? See below, or take the quiz!

Monochrones…