36. Where the f*** is time going!?

Now I don’t know about you, but the older I get the quicker time seems to pass.

And as a chronic overthinker in most areas of life, this finite and seemingly ever-accelerating nature of time is something that occupies a basically constant, and slightly depressing, space in my brain. It makes me a little bit sad.

Although the fact that we’ve only got so much time on this planet, and that it goes incredibly quickly, can be quite a motivating thought to do stuff now (carpe diem and all that), if the constant ticking of time is at the forefront of the mind, it can be quite anxiety inducing.

I mean, the inevitability of death is hardly the cheeriest of topics to deliberate on for too long. It can easily be the catalyst for an existential meltdown.

And as we don’t want any more of those, is there anything we can do to offset some of those pretty depressing feelings?

Well, maybe not completely, but I did recently come across an idea from author and speaker Laura Vanderkam that could at least help shift the needle ever so slightly.

This idea was all around the issue of life slipping away, and some of the things we can do to try and help make it feel longer (or at least give that illusion).

Vanderkam ran a study a few years ago, where over the course of a random day (it was like some Monday in March), 900 participants tracked what they did with their time.

In short (very short), the key finding was that the people who had the most abundant impression of time were the ones who were the most deliberate with it, and had done something a bit different to their usual routine. Basically, the people who did something slightly novel (like went to a dance class, or tried a new restaurant etc) felt like they had more time than the people who spent all evening lying on the sofa watching TV.

Tim Urban, known for his Ted Talk ‘Inside the mind of a Procrastinator’ (yes, I also feel personally attacked by that title), has a similar idea around novelty giving the impression of elongated time.

Urban gives an example which isn’t too dissimilar to Vanderkam’s study.

In this example, he juxtaposes (good word) two opposing weekends; one where we sit in and watch films all weekend vs a weekend where we go out and do something.

As glorious as the sofa based weekend can be, it can feel like it’s Friday one second and then suddenly Sunday the next. As there’s little to break up or differentiate the time, it flies past.

In contrast, as more things happen during the busier weekend, it subjectively feels like more time has passed. A city break feels longer than a weekend spent on the couch, for example.

It doesn’t just feel longer when we’re experiencing it, but also when we look back in retrospect. Let’s return to our city break. As a novel and generally more full on experience, it take up a more significant amount of time in our minds than a weekend of going through the motions.

It's similar to if we were to think back on a holiday that we've been on; in our minds it seems disproportionately longer than some other random week of the year that we spent at work.

Urban argues that as our brains don’t need to create new memory structures when going through the motions, the time subjectively flies by.

Sam Tatam, Head of Behavioural Science at the Ad Agency Ogilvy, presents the same idea, though from a more evolutionary point of view.

In short, when we’re in a familiar environment, our brains feel safe. This means our attentional resources go down and we don’t absorb as much information.

In contrast, if we’re in a more novel environment, our brains are a bit more on edge. They jump into survival mode and to keep us safe, look to capture every moment. This increased focus of resource can extend our experience of time.

This slightly strange sensation is (rather aptly) known as The Oddball Effect. Which, per the above, is a perceptual phenomenon where novel or unexpected stimuli result in a longer perception of time.

To go back to another study (last one, promise!), there’s a classic which involves the participants being sat in front of a computer.

This computer shows the same picture of a shoe multiple times, followed by an image of a flower just once.

Even though both images were shown for the same amount of time, most participants believed that the flower had been shown on screen for longer.

Why? Well, the novelty of the flower shot, in contrast to the repeated shoe image, gave the participants' brain something new to process, making it seem like time expanded while they were viewing it. The Oddball Effect.

As such, Laura Vanderkam, Tim Urban, Sam Tatam, and The Oddball Effect’s elongating of time suggestions comes down to two key words: novelty and intensity.

Novel and intense moments help create more memories. And the more memories we have across a given time period, the longer and more valuable that stretch of time feels. More memories = more time.

Although naturally, this hardly stops time or adds years on to our lives, it did resonate with me.

How easy is it, especially in adult life, to get into a routine of mundane repetition? Only to then look back over the past day/week/month/year and ask ourselves some variation of the question “Hmmm, what did I actually do with my life?”

And speaking from experience, this doesn’t tend to be a particularly nice realisation to come to.

Of course, it’s not particularly feasible to live a life of novelty every single day. We can hardly go to a different dance class every night and jet off on city breaks every weekend. Similarly, routines are good. They can allow us to build good habits and generally be productive humans.

On top of this, there are the practical challenges to novel experiences. Maybe none more so than the fact that our predictably comfort seeking brains aren’t always so welcoming of the whole making novel memories idea. They often prefer not to do that, and lie on the sofa watching Netflix instead. Talk about life’s ongoing battle.

However, if we can get over the constant resistance to effort from our comfort seeking brains, it seems like there is a balance to be struck there. If everyday is the same, by definition they don’t tend to stand out and the time disappears. If the days are forgettable, we’ll forget them.

This is why the Laura Vanderkams and Tim Urbans of the world encourage us to think about what will make this day different. Their suggestion is to see more novel experiences and more distinct memories as a bit of an antidote to time slipping away.

Naturally, this will hardly stop the clock or add years onto our lives, but it may help us get a little bit more control over our time, add a bit more enjoyment to it, and appease some of the sense of doom that can come with overthinking about the finite nature of life.

Let the good times (or at least the novel times) roll.