Time Slice
"...time perception is less about quantity and more about structure. "
I was catching up with my cohort friends. You know the scene: hugs, cups clinking, a bit of background hum from the pubâs latest Spotify mix, and the gentle swell of academic gossip. The vibes were warm; I, however, was emotionally on airplane mode.
Not because I didnât want to see themâI did. Itâs just that I had maxed out my âpeopleâingâ allowance for the week. You know the feeling. Fully there, but also⊠floating. Present enough to sip my tea and chuckle when someone brought up thesis chaos, but internally hovering somewhere between existential spiral and vacation withdrawal.
It wasnât until I heard the second person exclaim, âThe holidays went so fast!â that my autopilot flickered off.
Ah. Yes. That old chestnut.
Time.
Gone again. Without permission. Without even a backward glance. Rude.
Or is it?
Taming Time (or At Least Staring It Down)
This conversationâabout the slipperiness of timeâis one I keep having. It loops back like a boomerang. Which is ironic, considering itâs supposed to be linear.
The holidays felt short, didnât they? But hereâs the catch: time perception is less about quantity and more about structure. In other words: we donât experience time equallyâwe chunk it.
How we slice time determines how it behaves.
Chunking Time: The Design Behind the Days
Think of animation. A seamless Pixar moment might look fluid and whole, but itâs built frame by painstaking frameâoften 24 per second. The illusion of life relies on how small the segments are.
Now take your holidays. If all your days blurred into beach, scroll, nap, repeatâyour brain doesnât chunk them into memorable markers. No anchors, no detail, no perceived time. The result? You look back and itâs a beige blur. It feels like it vanished.
In contrast, a jam-packed week with wildly different experiencesâsurfing lessons, book club meltdowns, accidentally attending goat yogaâleaves you with clear temporal landmarks. Your memory has something to pin itself to.
More chunks, more perceived time.
The Power of Suggestion and the Teaching Death Spiral
One of the reasons I left teaching? (Brace yourself, itâs a little morbid.)
I could see my own death.
Not in a visions-of-doom way, but in the routine. The same bells. The same lesson plans. The same PD days, recycled annually like academic Groundhog Day. It wasnât burnout. It was⊠predictability. And predictability, unchallenged, collapses time into a flat loop.
When every week is structured the same, your brain stops filing days individually. And that is terrifying.
Music, Metronomes, and the Mindâs Clock
In the book Senses by Russell Jones, thereâs a fascinating insight into how music manipulates our perception of time. When you listen to fast-paced music, your brain anticipates a matching rhythm from the world around you. But reality doesnât move that fastâso in contrast, time seems slower. More has happened, because your mental metronome says so.
Want time to speed up? Try slow music. Your brain syncs with it. Everything feels smooth, easy, flowing. A spa day for your temporal cortex.
This is why fast music can energize a workout (hello, adrenaline), but it also elongates the perceived length of the activity. It's why lo-fi beats might make an afternoon disappear into deep work oblivion.
We are time travelersâsubconsciously, every day. Mood playlists included.
Time Is Not a Constant, Darling
So yes. Holidays feel fast. But maybe they werenât.
Maybe they just lacked enough moments that interrupted the rhythm. Maybe your brain didnât chunk them because they were soft, familiar, and undifferentiated. Lovely, yes. Memorable? Not always.
If you want to tame time? Start slicing.
Add variety. Create contrast.
Play with pacing.
Slow music, new routes to the grocery store, impromptu dance breaks in the kitchen.
Because time isnât just ticking. Itâs listening.
And itâs up to you to set the beat.