Chronos vs Kairos: Find out how you think about time when working on a project
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Chronos vs Kairos: Find out how you think about time when working on a project
When working on any project (personal or professional) we are always confrontend with tremendous amount of tasks that bring us closer to the goal or let us finish the project (many, many times there is no such a thing as the end of a project, just years of long, ongoing, constant improvement of the process and code). There are two ways you can look at it…
I have so much to do and so little time and the time is just passing by…
This is the classic way of perceiving time. Time in general. Chronological time as indicated by the dates on a calendar or the ticking of a clock. The Greeks called it Chronos (or Kronos).
I have 2 hours of my time, what is the best way I can use it?
For a special and unique time in your life, especially regarding important events such as wedding there was a separate word: Kairos. What is special depends on who is articulating the word. And that was the word used when you were encouraged to make the best use of the time, of your time. While Chronos is quantitative, Kairos has a qualitative nature.
From now on, I encourage you to look at your project in the second way always. The amount of tasks is probably never going to drop down. Everything that we do needs improvment. There are always thousands of ideas on how to make the software better, which technical debt to pay, what new features should be added, what parts of the design improved, etc. The backlog is probably full no matter how hard you try. And that is ok. When you work, time will just pass by (Chronos), but what happens to you and your project when working, can be Kairos. Therefore:
That is our recipe to make those moments of time uniqe and worthwhile to you as a developer. To be sure that we actually did someting in that time, instead of just letting it pass.
Read more about improving your current project in our book: Async Remote ebook