Military time was scheduled into minute measurable allotments instead of natural task durations.

Evidence

Time thus ceased to be the amount of temporal space a certain act “naturally” occupied but became a specific allotment, measured in minutes and seconds, in which that act had to be performed. Moreover, these acts were to be conducted not only within these new boundaries, but also regularly, i.e. according to the schedule imposed from above and specifying how frequent a certain act was to be performed. For example, soldiers were ordered to wash their clothes every Thursday. Imprisoned soldiers in the barracks were ordered to shave their heads once a week. Corporals and privates had to change their uniforms every Friday. During the other days of the week, i.e. Saturdays through Wednesdays, the soldiers were to do their military exercises once a day in winter and twice a day during the months of May to August. Target practice was to start on 20 April and end on 20 September of each year. Bed sheets had to be changed once every twenty days during summer, and every thirty days during winter. Besides regulating the life of the soldier in the barracks these manuals also made sure that the men were not to be left idle in the barracks or in the camp: their daily lives were constantly filled with numerous often trivial tasks which lacked a strictly military aspect, but which were required as a deliberate attempt to keep the men constantly engaged in useful tasks. — Khaled Fahmy, All the Pasha_s Men_ Mehmed Ali, his…, 721

Categorization

• XREF: The redefinition of lived time into scheduled allotments is the same disciplining of temporality Foucault and E.P. Thompson describe — worth connecting to the reader’s earlier work on institutions and social control.