Although you may know that there are at least several hundred cultures around the world, you may not know that each of them views time differently, and here’s a brief explanation of how cultures may view time.

Monochronic

Within a Monochronic culture, Time is a single, tangible concept, in which it can be lost, wasted and even killed. Time is something that needs to be managed, planned and used efficiently, making people lead their lives linearly, preforming one task after another, making people within these cultures often make it so that scheduled events and work take priority over relationships. This type of structure in society is commonly seen in places like North America and Northern Europe, along with Australia and New Zealand.

Polychronic

Along with Monochronic cultures, there’s another type known as Polychronic cultures, known for their idea that time is flexible rather than linear. Unlike those who are in a Monochronic culture, these individuals place more value on their interpersonal relationships instead of their schedule or their tasks. Instead of understanding events as happening one after another, these types of cultures see these events as happening simultaneously, putting a greater value on multitasking. Areas that are known for being Polychronic cultures include Latin America, Africa, Arab regions, and Native American cultures.

Interactions

Although humanity has come together around the world, time is still a completely different concept in each individuals mind, primarily coming from whatever culture they originate from. As necessary as it is for humanity to be diverse, this can still cause certain issues or conflict when these different types of people interact with each other. These types of interactions can especially occur in somewhere like the work environment, in which varying perspectives of time are to clash. A common example could be seen when these two types of people are asked to come to a meeting at a certain time, even whilst in a conversation with coworkers. Although a Monochronic individual would consider the meeting to be at a higher priority level than the conversation and leave the conversation before it’s completed, a Polychronic individual would think about the situation in the opposite perspective. Instead of abandoning the conversation just so that they could arrive to the meeting on time, these types of people would rather finish the conversation, believing that although the meeting would take place later, it would still take place. This type of situation could quickly cause ideas between the two types of people, especially when this isn’t a frequently discussed topic, making people uninformed to how others think about things differently.

Spectrum of them All

Even with these titles to classify cultures, most fall somewhere in between these two categories, making these titles more like two ends of a spectrum, with all cultures falling somewhere in the middle, even if they lean more towards one or the other. A good example of a culture that includes both ends of the spectrum would be Japanese culture, which, while they value punctuality, they still place major value in their interpersonal relationships. Out of everything you’ve seen, there’s only one question for you, which end of this spectrum do you fall on?