Time Across Cultures In The Fast-Paced World

With the current fast-paced world, Time has become way more valuable than ever. People now count their seconds as part of their life and they desperately want to make the most out of it. 

Given its importance time is one of the concept that is very hard to deal with cross culturally. In some cultures everyone's  
minutes is scheduled and if you do not get to finish what you planned on time, you schedule it for another time or day and do the following planned thing. By doing so you do not only respect your schedules but also other people's time. Unfortunately not all cultures are programmed that same way.

​For other cultures life isn't a matter of respecting schedules and  milestones,  but of moments well spent. For collective and relationship based cultures, what matters is not the clock ticking but quality and productive time you get to spend doing something or talking with someone. Everything is about people and what matters for the people

​I am not here trying to judge which culture does the right thing between respecting and keeping time and acting in the moment and make the most out of the present. My intention is to help you understand what the other person values which in turn informs the way they approach time in their culture. Now, you might be asking yourself what is the most beneficial way? I am sorry I do not have an answer for you, it all depends on where you are, who are you dealing with and what you want to achieve.  To finish this blog, I only have one advice for to deal with time across cultures. 

Be slow to judge but seek to understand!

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