How to slow down time

At the beginning of the year, you celebrated the holiday, set new year resolutions, then moved on to the routines of life. Before you know it, it’s Autumn – three quarters of the year has passed in a blink of an eye. You were astonished by how fast time flies and how little you have done thus far. Two months later, you found yourself gearing up for Christmas holiday. The cycle has come to an end and is ready for the new one.

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Does it sound familiar? Why was time flying so fast? You wonder. Looking back, time didn’t seem to fly that fast when we were young. When we were kids, a year of time seemed like a long period. However, it was a blink of an eye when we become adults. Is there any reason behind?

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As it turns out, yes, there are. The perception of time passing is a psychological phenomenon and topic for research. We all know that objectively, time is a constant – we all have 24 hours a day, and time flies at the same rate to everyone. However, time seems to fly at different rates to different people. In a subjective perspective, time is no longer constant – it is relative.

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Why is that so? There are several hypotheses.

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1. We process more information than before

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We are indulged in countless information today – emails and meetings at work, projects and tasks, news feed, social media, YouTube, Netflix, and so on. There exists way more information than we could possibly take in. When the rate we receive and process information far exceeds our brain’s capacity, we automatically simplify what we receive. It’s a biological mechanism. We may seem to have absorbed a lot of things, but we barely scratch the surface on each. When we are swamped by a large quantity of information without deep understanding and engagement, we create the illusion that time travels faster than normal. We “artificially” make time fly faster than it should.

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If you are old enough to have lived in the days without the internet, the way you received information and the quantity of it were completely different. We read newspaper to learn what happened in the world the day before. We watched TV news if we want more updated information. You would go to the library if you needed to do some research. You picked up a dial phone or wrote a letter if you need to reach out to friends. All these can be done in a few clicks today. When you were kids, it may take you weeks to finish reading a book, now you can ask ChatGPT to summarize it for you in two seconds. Our lives were not as efficient in the past. Everything takes a bit more time and effort. Today, everything is fast, instantaneous, and effortless.

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Because technology makes everything fast and easy, it may seem to us that time flies fast as well.

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2. Time and experience get less proportional and significant as we age

For a 10 years kid, a year of time accounts for one tenth of her life, which is a big portion. Compared that to a 50 years old adult, a year of time merely makes up one-fiftieth of her life journey. In other words, time gets less significant in psychological proportion as we age. When things are insignificant, we don’t pay much attention and it seems to pass by fairly quickly.

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Moreover, everything seemed novel to us when we were young. The first time visiting a theme park, first time cheating in exam, first time flying an airplane, first kiss in a romantic relationship, etc. Do you remember any of these in your life? I bet you do. Novel experiences were psychologically more significant. However, as we accumulate more experiences in life, the once novel experience became regular and insignificant. Do you still get excited flying an airplane now?

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Therefore, when our lives get routinized and lack of novel experiences, we don’t pay as much attention to it. Our brains will automatically lump time together when the days are similar in nature. This is a biological mechanism to save energy for our brains. When you do the same work day in and day out, your brain do not make those days distinct. That’s why we feel like every day is the same in the modern rat race, and time flies by so quickly.

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3. The world is changing fast

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I have introduced two subjective perspectives that make time seems to fly faster than normal. Next, I will talk about the third reason from an objective perspective. The world we live in today is changing fast, way too fast, which makes time seem to flow quicker than it should.

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Take an extreme example. Imagine you were living in a world 500 years ago, when people lighted candle in their home and commuted with horse carriage. In those days, technology and innovation were little and slow. You may live the same way as you dad did. Time was relatively “slow” in that era. Compared that to the world we live in today. The popularization of smart phone has completed changed the way we interact with the world, once and for all. And it only took a decade or two to do that. Comparatively, today time went much faster than the past.

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Let’s look at some more examples.

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Companies used to set goals (or KPI) once every year. Now many companies opted to set goals once every six months, or once every quarter. They did that to accommodate the fast-changing environment. The goals you set in last December might have become irrelevant in just six months.

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University degrees used to be a career opener for young working adults, but it has now become a minimum requirement for any knowledge worker. Moreover, the knowledge you learned during university might soon become obsolete. Studies suggested that the time it took to double the medical knowledge was estimated to be around 50 years in the 1950s, 7 years in the 1980s, 3.5 years in 2010, and as short as 73 days by 2020.[I] We must pursue continuous learning and professional development to just remain relevant.

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In sum, globalization, technology and innovation have increased both the intensity and frequency of changes in the world. The rate of change created a perception in our mind that time is moving faster than normal.

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We have talked about all the reasons why time seems to flow faster for us. What could we do now? While we can’t practically slow down time (we are not God), we may change the way we live our lives hence change our perception of time. Here’s what you could do.

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1. Limit the amount of information we take in daily

I have mentioned that over-consumption of information makes time seem to pass quicker. The obvious solution is to limit the information we absorb on a daily basis. Limit our screen time on social media and streaming platform, or practice a regular digital detox.

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2. Focus on the present moment

One common bad habit of modern netizens is multitasking. We are working on a report for our boss while checking emails every 5 minutes, looking at pop-up notification on our phone and replying WhatsApp messages. Multitasking depletes our neural resources. It goes against deep concentration, and makes our engagement shallow at best.

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Stop multitasking. Do one thing at a time. When we get home, put away our mobile phone when we tell bedtime story to the kids. Meditation and mindfulness can help us focus on the present moment. When our attention centers on the present without going everywhere (or multitask), we deepen the intensity of the experience on-hand, and possibly going into the “Flow” zone, making time seem to pass more slowly.

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3. Take on novel experience at work

One reason time seemed to go slower when we were young is that everything was novel to us. There’s a lot we can learn from that. For example, suggest a job rotation scheme at work. By taking on a new role once every few years, we can develop new skills and enrich our career experience. Try a stretch assignment – get out of your comfort zone. In other words, get out of the routines. When new experiences are significant, we tend to focus our time and effort in it, making it deep and rich. When we do that, time won’t go as fast as it used to be. One caveat – don’t job-rotate too often, or it might defeat the purpose.

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4. Develop new hobbies

Similar to the last point, new hobbies bring in spices and novelty to our lives. Learn the instrument you have been dreaming of, or practice that language you have been putting off for decades. When we learn new things, we rewire our brains by making new connections across countless neurons, contributing to our brain’s health.

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5. Take a pause and reflect on the past

We all set many goals at work and in life. Some of us spend a lot of effort pursuing the goals. However, we don’t spend nearly as much effort on reflecting on those goals than on setting and pursuing them. As it turns out, reflection not only helps us learn from the experience, it also helps “slow” down time.

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For example, by looking back on the project your team has done in the past 9 months, you led your team to reflect on what worked, what didn’t work, appreciated and celebrated everyone’s contribution during the journey. One common problem we have at the workplace today is constant actions – meet the new client, get the new product launched, implement the strategy, and so on. Pressures push us to take forward-looking actions that may not necessarily move us forward. And because of the tendency to move forward, we are not used to take a pause and look backward. However, looking backward and reflecting is a valuable exercise in and of itself. Needless to say, the action of pausing and reflecting stops us from taking forward-looking actions, thus “literally” slowing down time.

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6. Discover and practice the “unchanged” in the midst of constant changes

One huge factor that makes time seem to travel faster than it should is the intensity and frequency of changes we are undergoing every day. Because of that, we may mistakenly believe that we must change often to cope with the changing world. However, this is only half true.

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While it is important that we embrace changes to avoid being obsolete, we should pay attention to what must remain “unchanged” despite the changes. For example, leaders must maintain integrity at all times, regardless of changes. Leaders should also continue to develop and inspire their staff in good and bad times. Parents must remain present with their kids by giving their undivided attention and offer their unconditional love. Discovering what must remain “unchanged” gives us an anchor – timeless and powerful. When we practice these anchors, we don’t have to worry about the noises and fanfares. Developing meaningful connection with those we interact with helps to “slow down” time.

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To summarize, our perception of time flying too fast is often attributed to the shallow and fast experiences we encounter today. To combat that, we need to develop deep and meaningful connection. That’s how we could, at least psychologically, manipulate time.

[i] https://www.sohu.com/a/414671609_120728294