While the language of rush and busyness was employed, it was not used as extensively in the 1937 diaries as in the 2000 interviews. Again, we must be cautious of the data. But, it does seem that few domestic tasks spilled over into other time frames in the same way as in 2000, where respondents talked of the problem that tasks always took longer than expected or that re-sequencing the order in which tasks were performed led to a constant ‘flitting’ between tasks. By contrast, the sequencing of practices in 1937 appeared almost ‘seamless’. The above quotation of hurrying from Mrs Elliot (aged 48, married housewife with children, living in Burnley) can be read differently when taken in the context of her entire morning:
9.05: Caught the bus to Burnley. Went to the market which was quiet as it was early for shoppers and then to ‘Woolworths’ to buy cardboard box for sending a parcel in.
10.00: Go to get fruit and veg from the market before all the decent stock goes and then to the butchers for the same reason.
10.45: The market was much busier, but I hurried my shopping so that I did not miss the bus home.
While daily life in 1937 was an experience of moments of rush, this was a rush to keep within collective rhythms marked by numerous institutionally timed events – such as getting to market, meeting the bus, work and meal times, the laundry day. In 2000, harriedness was described in relation to the tension between managing the few remaining fixed institutional events (e.g. school times) and ‘cramming activities into self-designated ‘hot spots’ within one’s personal schedule in order to free up ‘cold spots’ of togetherness at other times.
Conclusions
Similar mechanisms of temporal organization appeared significant in both years. Temporal structures were held together by a combination of fixed institutional events and constraints surrounding practices of domestic life, paid work, consumption and network interactions. The main differences were that by 2000 there were fewer fixed institutional events and the temporal boundaries of those events were less clearly defined. Second, constraints of coordination have shifted in tune with the changing materialities of daily life and spatialities of social networks. On these terms, the key social change is less to do with any radical overhaul of the temporal organization of daily life and more a re-ordering of the mechanisms through which temporal rhythms operate. Influential theories of social change that suggest daily life is speeding up, that we work more and are preoccupied with time spent consuming, and that all kinds of inter-personal relationships suffer as a result, miss the bigger point. What is at stake is better understanding how temporal rhythms are ordered and re-ordered.
Re-ordering Temporal Rhythms
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