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Gary Halbert, one of the best copywriters of all time, uses a time method to check if his mind was sharp. He will guess at how much time has passed without look

Gary Halbert, one of the best copywriters of all time, uses a time method to check if his mind was sharp. He will guess at how much time has passed without looking at a clock. The closer he was to the real time the better.

elliekelly 6y ago
That's interesting. I thought I had read that older people perceive time more slowly than younger people but I wonder if that can be overcome by keeping our sense of time-telling "calibrated" by periodically checking our accuracy.
- lathiat 6y ago
  I’ve heard that story before and it was effectively centered on the fact that each year was a proportionally smaller part of your life as you get older. But feels like it wouldn’t be hard for that long term sense of time to be fairly disconnected with a very short term one.
- ButWhatFor 6y ago
  I thought it was the other way around? As you get older your perceive time as moving more quickly? As you get older every hour is a smaller percentage of your total life, so that made sense to me?
  - the_other 6y ago
    My experiences with this suggest that “long” spans of time (weeks->years) follow the “smaller percentage of your life” principle. However, occasions “in the moment” get perceived according to the rules applicable for that moment: - boring things: usually a slow dirge or filled with brief distractions - novel things: either no sense of time passing, or a feeling of time going anywhere from slowly to “endless” - mundane things: time passes “at a familiar rate”, but I remember fee details later
  - elliekelly 6y ago
    You're absolutely right. Total brain fart and it's too late for me to correct it with an edit.
  - forgotmypw17 6y ago
    I think this is a side effect of one's life becoming more routinized as they grow older, and having fewer memorable moments in each day. Anecdotally, I had this feeling of time moving more and more quickly, and "that thing which feels just a week ago was actually a year ago" until my early 30s, when I finally decided to unsubscribe from routines. As I gradually moved away from having a daily schedule, I had more time for unique and memorable experiences in my everyday life, and this feeling began to change. Nowadays, it is actualy more typical for me to feel the other way, meaning something which was just a week ago feels like it was much longer.
    - hikarudo 6y ago
      This sounds super interesting! What do you mean by unsubscribe from routines? Could you give some examples? What effects did doing this have on your life?

elliekelly 6y ago

That's interesting. I thought I had read that older people perceive time more slowly than younger people but I wonder if that can be overcome by keeping our sense of time-telling "calibrated" by periodically checking our accuracy.

lathiat 6y ago
I’ve heard that story before and it was effectively centered on the fact that each year was a proportionally smaller part of your life as you get older. But feels like it wouldn’t be hard for that long term sense of time to be fairly disconnected with a very short term one.
ButWhatFor 6y ago
I thought it was the other way around? As you get older your perceive time as moving more quickly? As you get older every hour is a smaller percentage of your total life, so that made sense to me?
- the_other 6y ago
  My experiences with this suggest that “long” spans of time (weeks->years) follow the “smaller percentage of your life” principle. However, occasions “in the moment” get perceived according to the rules applicable for that moment: - boring things: usually a slow dirge or filled with brief distractions - novel things: either no sense of time passing, or a feeling of time going anywhere from slowly to “endless” - mundane things: time passes “at a familiar rate”, but I remember fee details later
- elliekelly 6y ago
  You're absolutely right. Total brain fart and it's too late for me to correct it with an edit.
- forgotmypw17 6y ago
  I think this is a side effect of one's life becoming more routinized as they grow older, and having fewer memorable moments in each day. Anecdotally, I had this feeling of time moving more and more quickly, and "that thing which feels just a week ago was actually a year ago" until my early 30s, when I finally decided to unsubscribe from routines. As I gradually moved away from having a daily schedule, I had more time for unique and memorable experiences in my everyday life, and this feeling began to change. Nowadays, it is actualy more typical for me to feel the other way, meaning something which was just a week ago feels like it was much longer.
  - hikarudo 6y ago
    This sounds super interesting! What do you mean by unsubscribe from routines? Could you give some examples? What effects did doing this have on your life?