Analysing the Temporal Organization of Daily Life

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Dale SouthertonPractices and their Allocation

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435

SociologyCopyright 2006

BSA Publications Ltd

Volume 40(3): 435454

DOI: 10.1177/0038038506063668

SAGE Publications

London,Thousand Oaks,

New Delhi

Analysing the Temporal Organization ofDaily Life: Social Constraints, Practices andtheir Allocation

Dale Southerton

University of Manchester

ABSTRACT

There is a tension in time studies between measuring and accounting for the

changing distribution of units of time across social activities, and explaining

temporal experiences. By analysing in-depth interviews with 27 people, this article

employs a theory of practice to explore the relationship between respondentsnon-work practices and five dimensions of time. It hypothesizes that practices

which demand a fixed location within daily schedules anchor temporal organiza-

tion, around which are sequenced sets of interrelated practices. A third category

of practices fills the gaps that emerge within temporal sequences.The most signif-

icant socio-demographic constraints (gender, age, life-course and education) that

shaped how respondents engaged and experienced practices in relation to the

five dimensions of time are then considered. It is argued that the relationship

between different types of social practices, five dimensions of time and socio-

demographic constraints presents a conceptual framework for the systematic anal-ysis of differential temporal experiences.

KEY WORDS

constraints / co-participation / duration / periodicity / practice / sequence / syn-

chronization / tempo / temporal rhythms

Introduction

here is a tension in studies of time between measuring and accounting for

its changing socio-economic organization and understanding how different

social groups experience it. The tension is most evident in contrastingT

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empirical approaches. Time diary studies offer a level of micro measurement

detail, almost equivalent to money in economics, whereby activities can be cali-

brated in small units, typically minutes, and socio-economic change measured.

By contrast, ethnographic approaches insist on the analysis of multiple tempo-

ralities; that time is not reducible to minutes and the temporal rhythm of days,weeks, seasons, years, bodies and institutions all contribute to differential expe-

riences. While a resolution of this tension is beyond the scope of this article, it

is argued that by developing a conceptual framework for the systematic analysis

of temporal rhythms a more rigorous understanding of the changing organiza-

tion and experience of time in daily life is possible.

Informed by a theory of practice, which takes practices rather than indi-

viduals as the primary unit of investigation, the analytical approach plots the

non-work practices of interview respondents against five dimensions of time.

Analysis reveals that the temporal rhythm of the day is characterized by prac-tices which hold a fixed position in the sequence of practices. These practices

tend to require the co-participation of other people, obligation and personal

commitment. The section on constraints considers socio-demographic factors

(gender, age and life-course, and education/class) that constrained how respon-

dents allocated and experienced non-work practices. It is demonstrated that the

relationship between the specificities of social practices, five dimensions of

time and the constraints that people face when engaging in practices organize

temporal rhythms and construct how they are experienced.

Time Use Studies and Social Change

Much has been written about time, about the changing distribution of practices

within a 24-hour day (particularly between broad categories of leisure, personal

care, paid and unpaid work), and how economic policy and technological inno-

vations affect such distributions. Most studies start with a substantive issue as

their primary focus and concentrate on the dimensions of time explicitly rele-

vant to that issue (for exceptions see Adam, 1990; Zerubavel, 1979). Rather

than review studies of time according to the substantive issues that they address,

this section re-casts them in light of Fines (1996: 55) five dimensions of time:

Periodicity refers to the rhythm of the activity; tempo, to its rate or speed; timing to

the synchronization or mutual adaptation of activities; duration, to the length of an

activity; and sequence to the ordering of events.

Like Adams (2000: 135) timescape framework, Fines five dimensions make

explicit and recognize times multiplex function and expression. Both

approaches shift analytic attention away from time as a unit of measurement

and focus on how its multiple dimensions relate to, and in doing so construct,the temporal rhythms of daily life. While Fines five dimensions are sub-

sumed within Adams more encompassing timescape framework (the temporal

equivalent of landscape), Fines approach is most applicable to an analysis of

436 Sociology Volume 40 Number 3 June 2006



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practice because each dimension allows for systematic comparison between the

temporal components of different practices.

Duration

Time diary studies, which employ time diary data to record and measure the

number of minutes devoted to activities, represent the most comprehensive

accounts of duration. Gershuny (2000) employs diary data to account for pat-

terns of convergence and divergence of time use across different countries,

social classes and gender, and to highlight how various politico-economic

regimes produce different forms of temporal organization. Other accounts

focus more explicitly on time famine. Robinson and Godbey (1997) demon-

strate that despite having more free time in 1995 than 1965, Americans para-

doxically reported feeling more rushed. Schor (1992), on the other hand,explains the economic benefits for firms of training a limited number of em-

ployees who work long hours as opposed to a larger number of employees who

work limited hours. The workforce is willing to work for longer durations

because, Schor argues, people value their consumption relative to others and

global consumer culture places the lifestyles of the most affluent as the key con-

sumer referent group. The logic of global capitalism is that people work more

to consume more. Diaries have also been used to explore the changing condi-

tions of leisure, domestic divisions of labour, the emergence of new activities

and decline of others. However, the duration of activities remains the primary

focus of analysis.

Some ethnographic accounts focus on duration. Kunda (2001) and

Rutherford (2001) suggest the professional middle classes, especially female

members, face anxieties of increased workplace competition in the context of

their commitment to pursuing a professional career. In both accounts, the

importance of being seen as dedicated to the job, believed to be the principal

discriminating characteristic for upward mobility in the industries studied, led

workers to adopt strategies of working for long durations.

Tempo

Kundas and Rutherfords accounts also highlight the importance of tempo: to

symbolize commitment employees increased the tempo of their work. It is,

however, in theoretical accounts of time-space compression that tempo receives

most attention. Scheuerman (2001) discusses three forms of acceleration asso-

ciated with time-space compression: technologies, particularly in relation to

transportation, communications and production; social transformations; and

everyday life. Together these processes produce an intensification of activities

and experiences, because spatial constraints on the timing of activities havebeen compressed and individuals exposed to an ever-expanding plurality of

lifestyles instantaneously amenable through global information and communi-

cation technologies and the rapid distribution of global commodities (Giddens,

437Analysing temporal organization Southerton



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1991; Harvey, 1990). It is in this context that Darier (1998) suggests contem-

porary lifestyles are experienced as demanding of a need to experience ever-

more cultural activities, and, subsequently, being busy and conducting practices

at a fast tempo becomes symbolic of a full and valued life.

Sequence

Sequence refers to the order in which activities are conducted. It is a dimension

of time found in debates surrounding the changing distribution of time spent

in paid and unpaid work. It is suggested that women in dual income house-

holds experience a dual burden as a consequence of juggling both paid

employment and continued responsibility for domestic matters (Thompson,

1996). A symptom is that women multi-task and by inter-weaving the con-

duct of many tasks the sequence of activities is altered (Sullivan, 1997).Hochschilds (1997) ethnographic study of a major American corporation fur-

ther develops this point. She relates increased durations of paid work, which

result from the intensification of global capitalism, to qualitative changes of

temporal experiences in the home. She argues that as hours of paid work

increase (what she calls the first shift), time for domestic matters (the second

shift) is squeezed, creating the need for a third shift whereby people attempt

to create quality time for their loved ones. This is a process of rationalization

because the principles of Taylorization, whereby tasks are broken down into

their component parts (fragmented) and re-sequenced to maximize temporal

efficiency, have become applied to domestic activities. Overall, increasingly

more spheres of daily life are regulated by principles of the efficient sequenc-

ing of tasks within designated slots of time.

Synchronization

Bittman and Wajcman (2000) demonstrate important gender distinctions in the

quality of leisure time based on the synchronization of different activities. They

distinguish between pure and interrupted leisure. Men enjoy more pure

leisure time. Womens leisure, by contrast, tends to be synchronized with child-care and is thus punctuated by activities of unpaid work. In addition to imply-

ing that womens leisure time may be less restorative than mens, Bittman and

Wajcman show how the synchronization of activities in any given time slot pro-

duces qualitatively different experiences of time.

The dimension of synchronization can also be found in studies of post-

Fordist workplaces. Garhammer (1995) and Breedveld (1998) describe the pro-

cess of flexibilization whereby working times and locations are increasingly

deregulated and scattered. The consequence is a temporal shift from 9 to 5,

Monday to Friday to the 24-hour society. For Breedveld, those in professionaloccupations have greater control over the sequence of work activities and can

therefore develop strategies whereby the type of work they conduct outside the

9 to 5 model can be synchronized with leisure activities (such as completing




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forms or listening to music). By contrast, those of lower socio-economic status

have less control over the sequence of work activities and any synchronization

of work and non-work practices is not possible.

Periodicity

Periodicity refers to the frequency and repetition of events and activities. For

example, eating is a practice conducted with a high degree of frequency,

although as Wouters (1986) account of informalization suggests, the extent to

which the practice is repeated within the same temporal frames of each day may

be weakening with the emergence of grazing eating patterns. Periodicity is also

implicit in accounts of the effects that labour-saving domestic appliances have

on domestic organization. Vanek (1978) demonstrated that the amount of time

devoted to domestic work by women in the USA remained constant between the1920s and 1970s despite the diffusion of domestic labour-saving technologies.

She explains this consistency by suggesting that such technologies increase the

periodicity (frequency) at which domestic tasks are conducted.

Summary

The above accounts provide valuable insights into the relationship between

substantive spheres of social life (consumption, leisure, work, technology or

domestic labour) and the changing organization and distribution of time. In

doing so, each account focuses on selected dimensions of time, but few explore

the relationships between different dimensions of time or attempt to account for

the temporal rhythms of daily life beyond the remit of their substantive focus.

Analysing the Temporal Organization of Practices

The Study

This article draws from research concerned with how various forms of conve-nience technologies and services respond to, and produce, changing forms of

temporal organization. The primary source of data was interviews conducted

with 20 households (a total of 27 respondents) located in a suburb of Bristol,

England. The sample comprised single households, couples with and without

children, and the ages of respondents varied between 25 and 65. Some were

dual income households, some professionals and some retired, thus providing a

range of demographic and socio-economic status groups. Respondents were

contacted via letter sent to every other house in the most and least expensive

streets of the town. Interviews lasted, on average, two hours. Adopting a con-versational approach (Douglas, 1985) toward semi-structured interviews,

respondents were asked whether they felt society, in general, was more time

pressured than in the past, whether they felt pressed for time, to recount and




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reflect on the previous week and weekend day, and to describe how they

organized the passage of time in their daily lives.

The Analytical Approach

The day is the context of a composite of practices, and practices come with their

own requirements and demands. Taking this premise, it was necessary to

develop an analytic technique that allowed for an understanding of how prac-

tices were allocated within different time slots and organized in relation to one

another. It is important to recognize that practices come with sets of require-

ments necessary for competent and meaningful engagement (Reckwitz, 2002;

Schatzki, 1996). For example, some practices require, or at least imply a pre-

ference for, the co-presence of others (such as eating out and playing sport).

Practices come with normative expectations regarding how they should be con-

ducted (competitively, seriously, jovially) and norms vary across social groups.

Finally, practices do not occur in isolation from one another but are inter-

related. Engaging in one practice can rule out engagement in another or require

the performance of a connected practice. For example, eating requires that

somebody cooks. A key question for this analysis was how the requirements of

different practices impact on the temporal organization of the day, and how the

norms and expectations that govern practices varied across social groups and

affected experiences of time.

Given the multiple meanings and range of implications associated withany practice it was not feasible to analyse everything that respondents did in

the days recounted. Consequently, only non-work practices were analysed.

This was partly because paid and unpaid work come with sets of obligations

and constraints that make allocation in time less subject to personal sched-

uling than non-work practices. Distinguishing between work and non-work

practices was an interpretive task. Paid work and unpaid domestic tasks

described as unavoidable and obligatory were categorized as work. Practices

described as pleasurable but necessary either for household maintenance

(such as mowing the lawn) or to facilitate a social event (such as cooking inpreparation for a dinner party) were also categorized as work. To categorize

a practice as non-work required that respondents had a degree of discretion

over participation.

The non-work practices of each respondent were plotted along Fines five

dimensions of time in order to gain a sense of the temporal rhythm of respon-

dents days. Periodicity was interpreted in terms of whether the practice was

conducted with any regularity on a daily, weekly or monthly basis. Tempo

referred to whether the practice was described as rushed or leisurely.

Synchronization was adapted to refer to whether or not a practice was pre-arranged and coordinated with other people. Duration reflected the amount

of time devoted to the practice. Sequence was interpreted according to

whether the practice was fixed within a specific time slot, allocated according




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to its fixed location within a sequence of interrelated practices, or whether

allocation was contingent on the emergence of opportune moments in the

sequence of practices.

Figure 1 illustrates the interpretive technique of plotting practices along

each dimension of time. The accompanying description of Bradley and Cindysprevious weekday and weekend day helps clarify the interpretive process

involved. After taking her daughter to school, Cindy, a home-worker, had gone

to the gym (which she did twice a week) where she had arranged to meet

friends. This activity was fixed, in that other practices were allocated around it,

and Cindy spent between 10 a.m. and 12 noon (duration) at the gym before

returning home for lunch and an afternoon of domestic labour. It was not until


Figure 1 An example of plotting practices by temporal dimensions

Bradley and Cindy(Age 34 and 32)

Periodicity

Irregular Regular

Gym; read;

watch television

Eat outWalk to the park;

shopping; bike ride

Tempo

Rushed Leisurely

Gym; shopping Watch television;

eat out; walk to

the park; read

Bike ride

Synchronization

By arrangement

Gym; eat out Walk to the

park; bike ride;

read

Watch television;

shopping

Duration

Day

Eat out;

shopping

Watch television;

bike ride;

read

Gym; walk

to the park

Sequence

Fixed Contingent

Eat out;gym

Walk to thepark; bike ride

Shopping; watchtelevision; read

Inter-related allocation



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the evening that another non-work activity took place. Bradley, an accountant,

took his daughter for a short bike ride to get her out the house while Cindy

finished preparation of their evening meal. They then watched television

together. When Cindy went to sleep, Bradley read for half an hour, something

he did in order to switch off before sleeping.The weekend day presented many more opportunities for non-work acti-

vities. As on every Saturday morning, Bradley entertained his daughter, in this

case with a leisurely trip to the park. During this time, Cindy dashed to the

shops (tempo), as she wanted to buy something for their evening out, clothes

shopping being a frequent but not regular activity for Cindy (periodicity). The

afternoon consisted of domestic work while their daughter visited her grand-

parents. They described the need to complete housework in the afternoon so

that they could properly relax (Cindy) when dining out with friends in the

evening. This was a pre-arranged event (synchronization), the only weekendthat we could all meet up, and was an infrequent activity; they rarely ate out

with friends. To compound the difficulties, they could only book a table for

7.30 when really 8.30 would have been better so we can get Lucy settled pro-

perly (Cindy), although Bradley observed a relative upside to this arrangement

because it does mean were not in such a rush to get back for the baby-sitter

as we leave that bit earlier (Bradley). The meal lasted all evening. As can be

seen, respondents description of their days contained enough detail to clearly

interpret the location of each practice within the five dimensions of time.

The Temporal Organization of Practices

The temporal rhythms described by Bradley and Cindy were similar to those

described by other respondents: punctuated by moments of rush and compara-

tive calm; of coordination with the temporal regimes of other people and insti-

tutions; and focused around a few activities that were fixed within their daily

schedules. A critical component that affected the plotting of practices was the

degree of social involvement of others. Practices conducted with people who

resided outside the household, with household members, and practices con-

ducted alone presented different requirements of allocation. Taking each timedimension in turn it is possible to gain a generic sense of how practices were

organized within the context of a day.

Periodicity

Figure 2 shows most practices were conducted with regularity and frequency.

Practices conducted with non-household members were least likely to be regu-

lar events, even if they were frequent. For example, Mike and Charlotte ate out

with friends frequently about once a month or so (Mike) but this was notregular in the sense of being conducted on the same day every month. Practices

conducted with household members tended to have a high degree of regularity,

being activities that couples and families conducted as a matter of routine.




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Eating a take-away meal on a Saturday night and taking children to the park

were characterized by their habitual location within a specific weekly or daily

time slot. Yet, some activities were one offs (Sarah), such as a family visit to a

tourist attraction or playing a board game as a means of killing an hour

(Mark). Practices conducted alone tended to be frequent and have a high degreeof regularity, especially if the respondent had particular commitment to the

practice or it regularly filled empty time slots.

Tempo

Tempo is a difficult dimension to analyse because one persons interpretation of

rush may be anothers experience of leisure. It is also a contingent condition,

dependent on the degree to which interrelated practices infringe on the pursuit

of that practice. Consider this description of a family outing:

We went swimming and took a picnic so we had that, and then went on an adven-

ture trail at Bowood. And because we had to get there by twelve to make it worth

while we had to leave swimming with enough time to spare. Then we had to find

somewhere for the picnic and it just went on like that. God I needed a day off after

that day off!

In this case, swimming had taken longer than Sarah anticipated because the

pool was much busier than usual, ruining her carefully prepared schedule and

making the tempo of the main activity feel rushed. Examples such as this show

that tempo was often related to the disruption of temporal schedules.

Synchronization and Coordination

A striking feature of respondents narratives was how practices conducted with

others, particularly those that involved non-household members, required

a comparatively high degree of coordination and arrangement. Figure 3

shows that only two respondents reported a practice involving a non-household

member that did not require prior arrangement, and four of the eight cases

described as loosely arranged featured practices which emerged from anotherarranged event. For example, Deborah described how a family lunch presented

the opportunity to go for a drink when her mother-in-law offered to look after

her child, an offer that Deborah had anticipated but could not take for granted.


Figure 2 Plotting practices according to the dimension of periodicity

Frequent but

Irregular not regular Regular Total

With others 10 10 16 36With household member 4 6 21 31

Alone 7 15 24 46

Total practices 21 31 61 113



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Other practices described as being loosely arranged were those conducted regu-

larly, removing the need to make arrangements but requiring the institutional-

ization of the practice in the schedules of others. Kathryn described the

regularity of visiting extended family as reducing any need to make arrange-

ments because: its just an unwritten rule, eleven oclock every Sunday.

High degrees of arrangement were also required for practices that took

place with household members and which were not regular or frequent. By con-

trast, practices conducted alone typically required no prior arrangements,

except in Audreys case where she operated a rota with her daughter to share

access to the computer. The degree to which a practice involved others and the

extent to which the practice represented a regular or routine engagement com-

bined to determine the extent to which a practice required synchronization with

the personal schedules of others.

Duration

Duration was also closely related to whether a practice involved the co-

participation of others. Practices subject to arrangement with non-household

members tended to have a relatively long duration, which was appropriate

given that such practices required a fixed position within personal schedules. By

contrast, practices conducted alone tended to have a short duration, partly

because they were often practices conducted in order to fill time between fixedpractices. Engagement in practices with household members tended to be of a

relatively long duration if it was a planned event.

Sequence

The sequencing of practices was critical to their positioning in the other four

dimensions. Practices conducted with non-household members were over-

whelmingly fixed, largely because they required arrangement and coordination

(Figure 4). Other practices were sequenced in relation to those fixed within aparticular time slot. Mike and Charlotte described how:

Mike: Everythings geared towards eight oclock, thats the time we were meeting

John and Sue


Figure 3 Plotting practices according to the dimension of synchronization

By Loose No

arrangement arrangement arrangement Total


Alone 1 3 42 46




13/22

Charlotte: Yeah, you sort of count back from that dont you, like an hour to get

ready, so thats seven

Mike: I was done by half seven so I got to check out the footie results on teletext

while waiting

For Charlotte and Mike, going out with friends was fixed and getting ready to

go out was interrelated because it needed to precede the fixed event. For Mike,

however, a temporal gap emerged between getting ready and going out. This is

indicative of how the allocation of practices conducted alone was overwhelm-

ingly contingent on the emergence of temporal gaps within the sequence of

practices. Fiona recounted how: I got back from Mums and, well, the traffic

had been good so I was back at six and not going out til eight so I had a quick

browse of the internet to kill time really. Even practices conducted alone andwith a high degree of regularity had a contingent location in the sequence of

practices. James captured why this was the case: I always watch Emmerdale,

without fail, but thats just because I aint got anything else on when its on, you

know Ive had my tea by seven and if Im doing anything its always at around

eight. Practices conducted alone might take place at the same time every day

or week but this was because those time slots were routinely caught between

fixed practices.

Practices and Temporal RhythmsPlotting practices according to Fines five dimensions of time creates an imme-

diate impression of the temporal rhythms of respondents daily lives and of the

components that contribute to its ordering. The temporal organization of a day

can be hypothesized as one coordinated around fixed events that usually involve

the co-participation of others. Where those others are non-household members

the degree of arrangement is likely to be high because social and spatial proxi-

mity demands a greater degree of coordination between actors. Surrounding

temporally fixed practices are those where location within daily schedules

is malleable, but which require allocation within a sequence of interrelatedpractices. Finally, there are practices that can be best described as time fillers,

slotted into schedules when the sequence of practices left voids within parts of

the day.


Figure 4 Plotting practices according to the dimension of sequence

Fixed Located in

Fixed set of practices Contingent Total


Alone 5 12 29 46




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Characterizing the temporal organization of the day is a useful way of

framing how practices are ordered within time. It moves analytic attention

away from the distribution and measurement of time between different daily

practices towards an approach that considers the relationship between practices

and different dimensions of time. However, to avoid treating social actors ashomogeneous it is necessary to take account of the different socio-demographic

constraints that affected how social groups conducted non-work practices and

experienced time.

Constraints and the Allocation of Practices in Time

The most significant socio-demographic factors that affected how practices

were allocated within the day are: gender, age and life-course, and education.

As implied by the discussion of practices which required coordination between

respondents and non-household members, constraints related to space, for

example the location of jobs, schools, local amenities and social networks,

were also important, although detailed discussion is beyond the scope of this

article. It is also necessary to note that all interviewees were white hetero-

sexual UK nationals and consequently the analysis provides no insight into eth-

nicity or sexuality. In addition, because analysis focused on non-work prac-

tices, the impacts of the temporal organization of paid work could not be

systematically analysed.

Gender

Consistent with previous studies, the domestic division of labour and mother-

hood was at the heart of gendered temporal experiences. Women who had

dependent children held primary responsibility for the organization of child-

care, schooling, servicing friendships and attendance at clubs and other activi-

ties. The distinction between mothers in paid employment, who are often

described as suffering the dual burden of domestic and paid work, and

home-workers was, however, less striking. Deborah, a mother of two and

a home-worker, stated that:

Lots of things are planned for me if you like, like all the things the kids do, you

know, everything fits around them ... once Chloe is at nursery I get some time to

myself but then its like I havent got enough time to do anything I can read a

magazine which is nice and get some jobs done but I cant go shopping cause there

isnt the time.

Charlotte, a working mum, described a similar situation:I pick Beth up from my Mums about three and Mike finishes early on a Friday and

even if all the housework is done and Mike takes her to McDonalds so that I can

have a bath or whatever I know theyll be back soon so I cant really take my time




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or anything. Its about grabbing the opportunities but even when you do you know

you have to grab it quickly because there will be something you have to do after.

Charlotte and Deborah typified how mothers daily practices were oriented

around a range of fixed points which strongly influenced the sequence, tempo

and duration of non-work practices.

This point is reinforced when contrasted with men. Fathers described a

whole host of constraints related to children. However, their narratives placed

less emphasis on responsibility for the organization of childrens daily sche-

dules. Take for example Mark, a father of two children and married to Amanda

who also worked full time. They discussed an occasion where, on the day that

he usually finishes work early and collects the children from school, both the

children went to play at friends homes:

Mark: Mand said shed pick them up on the way home from work so I thoughtgreat and met up with a couple of friends and went for a few pints

Amanda: Yeah and I got in and had to dash around, bath the kids and that because

you never got back till gone six when you said youd get back and get every-

thing ready for when I got in with the kids. If that was me, I wouldve got back

so the kids didnt have to hang round waiting for a bath and then be late

for bed.

This is not to argue that fathers do not participate with childcare Amanda

quickly qualified that Mark is very hands on when it comes to the kids. Rather,

it suggests that the personal schedules and temporal organization of childrens

lives had a stronger bearing on the temporal rhythms of mothers daily lives.

It was also interesting to note that women with adult children also

described how the presence of those children impacted on their daily rhythms.

Anne explained how:

They usually come over on a Sunday for lunch and that so my entire Sunday is taken

up by that really. Obviously I get to read the papers in the morning and watch the

tele on the night but a great chunk is cooking, getting things ready and waiting for

them all to arrive.

Rons response captured the point: Its just like the old days, only I get tosit here, read the papers and watch the box instead of having to entertain the

kiddos or mend their bikes.

Gendered constraints related to senses and degrees of obligation to children

and family. Fathers did not describe the same degree of primary obligation as

did mothers. Fathers, especially those with non-dependent children, did not

describe activities centred around children as being key coordinating or fixed

points in the daily schedule to the same extent as did mothers.

Age and Life-course

Life-course was important in relation to the range of practices in which respon-

dents engaged. Parents of dependent children engaged in a range of practices




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that were variously described as family or quality time. This involved playing

with children, taking them places and spending time together as a family. As

discussed elsewhere, such moments of family togetherness (Daly, 1996)

required a significant degree of coordination between the personal schedules of

each household member and synchronization with other practices (Southerton,2003). Sarahs account of the planning required for a day out at an adventure

park, discussed in the previous section, served as a good example.

Interestingly, respondents with teenage children, all of whom were aged

between 41 and 50, described conducting more non-work practices in the two

days recounted than did any of the other respondents. This was because the

relative independence of teenage children presented these respondents with

opportunities to engage in personal practices while continuing to participate in

a range of family activities. Audrey explained:

Now that shes older she does lots of things on her own which is nice because it givesme time to do my things like go out shopping and that, but we also, well shes

not that grown up that we dont have meals together and that, play games, go to the

cinema, that sort of thing.

Practices conducted by respondents who did not have dependent children

were more revealing with respect to age differences. Younger child-free respon-

dents described the importance of socializing within networks of friends and

consequently identified a series of fixed social events within their daily life: Ive

three social events a week, golf on a Sunday, dinner on a Wednesday with col-

leagues and I always do something on a Saturday night with some of my oldfriends (Elizabeth). Older respondents had less hectic social lives and described

the pursuit of mini-projects. Mary had been tidying the gardens of her

mothers elderly friends while Arthur had volunteered to help renovate a local

building and explained how you just turn up when you can and chip-in.

The presence of dependent children made the life-course important because

it intensified the need to synchronize the practices of household members. Age

was significant because younger respondents identified more fixed events that

involved coordination within social networks, whereas older respondents

tended to engage in a series of mini-projects in which they had autonomy overtheir synchronization with other practices.

Education, Cultural Orientations and Social Networks

It is not simply the type of practices in which respondents engaged that shaped

their experiences of time but also their cultural orientations towards those prac-

tices. Cultural orientations refer to expectations of how practices should be

conducted competently and what personal satisfaction can be gained from

engagement. Differential orientations broadly correlated with respondents edu-cational achievements and can therefore be viewed as expressive of what

Bourdieu (1984) calls cultural capital. Three orientations were important with

respect to different temporal experiences: variety and specialization; personal




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also had a good sense of where he would be and what he was doing.

Coordinating practices with Ron was relatively unproblematic. The familiarity

of customary practices favoured by many, although not all, respondents with

lower educational qualifications meant that practices were often submerged in

temporal routines. This had the effect of reducing anxiety about fitting practicesinto time, about coordinating with networks and about moving between cul-

tural contexts. Respondents with high and low educational qualifications might

have shared similar rhythms of the day, but those rhythms were experienced dif-

ferently because of different modes of engaging in practices.

Degree of Commitment to Practices

Commitment to any given practice was not directly related to educational

attainment; the enthusiast of gardening is not necessarily the possessor of highor low educational qualifications. However, some practices lent themselves to

commitment more than others sport, the arts and food being good examples.

And ways of engaging in different types of practices were related to educational

attainment. There are also different modes of commitment. The enthusiast

takes many forms, from someone committed to frequent participation to those

who engage in an activity for the purpose of self-actualization, which Lamont

(1992) describes as the continuous pursuit of self-improvement within a par-

ticular activity.

Of the highly educated respondents, Elizabeth and Bob provided the

clearest examples of self-actualization. Elizabeth described how I like the tech-

nical side of the game [golf], so I am constantly refining my swing, looking fortips and then when my handicap improves I feel like Ive achieved something.

Bob used travelling to work as part of his cycling training routine:

I dont cycle the most direct route, because I still compete cycling wise. So I use the

ride in the morning and the ride home to put extra miles on the journey. But if I cycle

straight in its 3.23 miles and my personal best is eight minutes 48 seconds, but it

usually takes me about ten minutes 30 seconds.

Steven discussed a commitment to acquiring knowledge about food, I lovereading about it, cooking, different produce, its all important to me. Angela

and Fiona presented similar narratives of gardening. While those with low edu-

cation did express commitment to practices through the frequency of engage-

ment, they described the pleasures gained as being based mainly in

participation. Contrast Elizabeths orientation to golf with Mikes: its just a

laugh, a chance for a few of us to get together really.

The consequence of a high degree of personal commitment is that it fixes a

practice within a daily or weekly schedule. Being highly educated did not relate

to degree of commitment, but it did affect type of practices and mode of engage-ment. Those with high education engaged more extensively in practices that

either required or were more amenable to high degrees of commitment, result-

ing in more fixed non-work practices within the days they recounted.




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Routine vs Spontaneity

The final cultural orientation that influenced the allocation of practices related

to the valuing of routine or spontaneity. Many highly educated respondents

deliberately attempted to create temporal spaces in which the potential for

spontaneity was increased. This involved tactics like juggling many tasks to

leave a Sunday afternoon empty of practices in the hope that ones partner

might: surprise me, you know, take me shopping or to the cinema (Louise).

Amanda described how I dont like things to become too routine, its nice when

things happen unexpectedly, like a friend phoning and saying lets go out for

a drink tonight, its those sort of occasions that always seem most fun.

Lower-educated respondents were generally inclined to maintain routines

and firm boundaries between practices. For example, Mary insisted on a clear

boundary between domestic work and her evening of non-work practices. To

achieve this she went to great lengths to eat at the same time each day, and

frowned upon unexpected interruptions to her potter time: to my mind when

you get home is when you come home, its our time and I take a very dim view

of it being interrupted it just means our evening is messed-up. Mary was one

of seven respondents with lower education who explicitly expressed a personal

need for preserving routines and viewed spontaneity as disruption.

Conclusion

The day is the context for the allocation of composite practices. The temporal

organization of the day can be characterized as being constituted by practices

that have a fixed position within schedules. These are surrounded by interre-

lated practices that have a more malleable position within sequences, leaving a

stock of practices contingent on filling empty slots within the day. Practices that

tended to be fixed were those that involved the co-participation of others where

a degree of coordination was necessary; a high degree of obligation to others;

and, significant degrees of personal commitment. Temporally fixed practices

also tended to have a relatively long duration within the context of a day.While the temporal organization of the day followed the same component

form for all respondents, how practices were allocated and the experience of

those practices differed according to a range of social constraints. Parents

explained how childrens activities took priority, acting as fixed points which

limited the range of practices in which they could engage. Mothers found them-

selves primarily responsible for the organization of childrens schedules and this

had a significant impact on the sequence, tempo and duration of their non-work

practices. Gender, age and life-course therefore represent constraints that

shaped differential temporal experiences.Level of education, which, by definition, is closely related to social class,

was influential with respect to the range of practices and modes of engagement

in them. Those with high educational qualifications expressed a preference for




20/22

engaging in a variety of practices, often with the objective of self-actualization.

This had the effect of generating more fixed practices, either because commit-

ment increased the personal significance of the practice in relation to other prac-

tices sequenced within the day, or because engaging in a variety of practices led

to a multiplicity of networks and exacerbated the need for spatial and tempo-ral network coordination. By contrast, those with lower educational qualifica-

tions tended to favour customary practices which were conducted with

regularity and varying degrees of commitment.

The advantage of considering how social practices map onto Fines five

dimensions of time is that it allows for the analysis of several factors: the inter-

relationship between different practices; how practices are sequenced to pro-

duce the temporal rhythms of daily life; and, when taken together with varieties

of social constraints, the nuances of temporal experience. In this study, the tem-

poral rhythms of respondents daily lives indicate a degree of uniformity interms of the structural organization of practices in time, but social differentia-

tion with respect to how those practices are engaged and experienced. Directing

analytic focus onto the relationship between social practices and dimensions of

time therefore presents a framework for systematically measuring and account-

ing for time use while also capturing multiple experiences of time.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Alan Warde, Elizabeth Shove and Mark Harvey for their intel-lectual support during the research upon which this article is based. I am also grate-ful to Rosemary Deem and colleagues at the ESRC Centre for Research onInnovation and Competition and the European Sociological AssociationConsumption Network, and two anonymous referees for comments on earlier draftsof this article.

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Dale Southerton

Is a research fellow at the ESRC Centre for Research on Innovation and Competition,

University of Manchester. His research interests centre around the sociology of con-

sumption, with particular focus on time and space, domestic technologies, identity-

formation, sustainability and innovation. He is currently working on two ESRC research

projects: the Diffusion of Cultures of Consumption: A Comparative Analysis; and

Sustainable Domestic Technologies: Changing Practice, Technology and Convention.

Recent publications include articles in the journals Time and Society and Sociological

Reviewand an edited book, Sustainable Consumption (Edward Elgar, 2004).

Address: CRIC, University of Manchester, Harold Hankins Building, Booth Street West,

Manchester, M13 9QH, UK.E-mail: [email protected]


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Analysing the Temporal Organization of Daily Life