Oct. 24: Put yourself in time out

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The second annual Take Back Your Time Day falls on a Sunday this year — Oct. 24 — so organizers expect that churches will encourage people to consider a so-called "national epidemic" of overwork and overscheduling.

Seattle's big event that day will be a community potluck, from 5 to 8 p.m. at St. Joseph Catholic Church, 732 18th Ave. E., including speakers and music (visit www.timeday.org for potluck suggestions).

Organizers hope the movement will take on the kind of grass-roots support that Earth Day has for the environment, says Seattle's John de Graaf, national coordinator for Take Back Your Time, which has 15,000 members.

Legislative issues are being advanced, such as a move to enact a three-week minimum annual paid leave for all workers and limits on mandatory overtime, but much of the change so far has been more personal, de Graaf says.

Steps forward, in his view: The Massachusetts Council of Churches' "Four Windows of Time" campaign, which invites people to choose four periods of time before Oct. 24 to take part in slow, simple "life-renewing activities" — a walk in the woods, tea on the back porch — and to reflect on how the frenetic pace of life and long work hours affect creativity, family time and civic good.

Steps back, in his view: The Tacoma School District's "absolutely wrong-headed" repeal of a set recess for elementary students.

For more information on Oct. 24 events and the movement, visit www.timeday.org or contact Gretchen Burger, gretchenburger@prodigy.net, 206-293-3772.

Sherry Stripling

Copyright © 2004 The Seattle Times Company

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