This possibility brings me to the fossilisation-innovation-transformation index (FITI), the third and final instrument in my imaginary tool-kit. Properly applied, the FITI gives a sense both of the rate at which practices are changing, and of the relative plasticity or rigidity (lock-in) of the interlocking systems of practice of which society is composed.
Although the SSI, the CACP and the FITI are the stuff of future fiction, something along these lines is arguably required if we are to build on May and Thrift’s conclusion that ‘a sense of social time is made and re-made according to social practices’ (May and Thrift 2001: 5). Equally, and as my account of these three measures makes clear, operationalizing this idea on any scale seems to be an impossibly complicated task. Fortunately, all is not lost.
While the project of capturing the temporal qualities of always-changing, alwaysintersecting practices of everyday life does seem to be overwhelmingly ambitious, the process of thinking about it has served to crystallize a handful of more modest but plausible observations. The first of these concerns the limits of studying time and time use in ways that are detached from the dynamics and distributions of practice. Writing about rhythm and routine as if these could be separated from the specific details of doing seems misguided. Second, if the aim is to document the temporal configuration of daily life, matters of sequence and coordination are as significant as those of duration and deserve just as much attention. Third, those engaged in time-use studies should recognize that the practices they track and trail are far from stable and that it is important to keep a watchful eye on the changing composition of everyday life.
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Elizabeth Shove