"Hatteras Time" Explained
Island time is different

by Rick Kinnaird

Whenever Shelby and I cross the Wright Memorial Bridge to the Outer Banks a magical thing happens; all of the stress and worries in our life melt away. By the time we take the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge to Hatteras, they seem a vague memory. We call this phenomena "Hatteras Time."

It seems logical until you think about it: how are disappearing worries related to time? But many, if not most, of our worries stem from trying to do too much in too little time. On Hatteras Island time is more leisurely and flexible.

If you’ve been to the Caribbean you’ve probably experienced Island Time – a similar phenomena. Island Time is usually referenced in relation to waiting for someone to show up. If you say noon and they show up at 4pm, that’s Island Time.

In Mexico people say they'll get to it mañana (pronounced man-yan-ah). Mañana literally means tomorrow, but is frequently used in the context of “I’ll get to it tomorrow” and, as George Harrison wrote, “tomorrow never comes.” In all of the B-movie Westerns about Gringos going south of the border, there always seems to be an early scene where they ride into the sleepy, nearly deserted town where an overweight Mexican with a big sombrero appears to be asleep, tilted back in a chair against a wall. This man is asked to do something and is only too happy to oblige but, when pushed about when, his answer is, “mañana, mañana.”

Here’s a little exercise that might help you understand Hatteras Time (you may wish to do this on your computer in a spreadsheet):
1. Make a list of everything you need or want to do, putting one item on each line.
2. Assign the amount of time you think it will take to get each item done, putting this in a separate column in your spreadsheet.
3. Assign priorities to each item: A – most important, B – medium importance, C – least important.
4. Within each priority rank in 1, 2, 3 order which is the most important, the next, etc.
5. Go fishing.

In the last item above you may wish to substitute surfing, be it regular board surfing or wind surfing or kite surfing. Or you may wish to put in "walking on the beach," "reading a book," "watching a sunset," "looking at the birds," …

"Power users" of Hatteras Time usually skip straight to number 5.

So let’s return to your spreadsheet and do a little analysis. Ask yourself when you want to have everything on your list accomplished. Write down the first thing that comes into your brain (no cheating). Add up all the time on the list (you can use the spreadsheet to do this). Take the total time to accomplish everything and double it to get a more realistic number.

Now think about how often you add items to your list and how often you take items off. Does your list keep growing? What does this tell you? It tells you that you’ll never finish your list.

Go fishing.