Time Dilation Happens In Our Minds And Not Just In Physics

Some people are notoriously bad at setting deadlines and estimating time. The comforting fact is that it's largely not our fault. Many factors play a part in our distorted perception of time, and most are difficult or impossible to modify. Time itself is not something we can change either, despite all our dreams of time machines.

Why does life seem to speed up as we get older? Why does the clock in your head move at a different speed from the one on the wall? Why is it almost impossible to go a whole day without checking your watch? Is it possible to retrain our brains and improve our relationship with it? Why time slows down when we’re afraid, speeds up as we age, and gets warped when we’re on vacation?

We construct the experience of time in our minds, so it follows that we are able to change the elements we find troubling - whether it’s trying to stop the years racing past, or speeding up time when we’re stuck in a queue, trying to live more in the present, or working out how long ago we last saw our old friends. Time can be a friend, but it can also be an enemy. The trick is to harness it, whether at home, at work, or even in social policy, and to work in line with our conception of time. Time is not only at the heart of the way we organize life, but the way we experience it.

What can we do? To fix our broken perception of time, we can reevaluate our relationship with it, become more aware of how we spend our days, and understand how our perception of time influences productivity. We can also seek time-management methods that will make us feel more in control of our time and less like its victims.