What if you can shift your perceptions to allow you to control how you experience time ? I know this may sound outrageous to you , but allow me to introduce the idea that time is not linear . In other spaces and dimensions , time has no relevance . So why does it have such a hold on our human experience ?
As humans , we have an overwhelming desire to understand , control and predict the things that influence our lives . The concept of time is one of the functions that allows us to do to these things because our brain has an idea of what a minute or hour is . But have you ever been doing something that you really enjoy and it seems like 2 hours flashed by in 15 minutes ? Or have you had the opposite experience , where a difficult task drags on for what seems like endless hours ?
I was not a fan of the idea that I had limited time , with my kids , to enjoy a beautiful summer evening , or even to do absolutely nothing . We are so pressed for time and to do things , that we have entered the rat race to see who can get the most done , in the shortest period of time .
I have developed exercises that have assisted me in learning to work outside the structure of time as we understand it . I test them whenever I have the opportunity to . There are many benefits to learning to perceive time in a way that serves me instead of being beholden to it .
Using these “ time-hacks ” permits me to enjoy the day , doing what I desire and feel no stress because I know that I can complete all that needs my attention in a different space . I have a friend who calls these “ desire days ”. Days to do what you want , when you want and most importantly , without judgment !! I also know that I have the capacity to knock out a project that others would shy away from because it will take too long . One example that I often giggle about occurred on a warm spring day . I had been dating my now husband for a few months and we decided we wanted to have a big Thanksgiving style dinner and invite his family .
He left for work and I began the mental process of creating a container to make dinner . I got it all in order , physically executed all that needed to be done and got out a lawn chair and a book to enjoy my afternoon .
When my husband got home , dinner was nearly ready and I was reading my book . He asked how I accomplished all of that and still had time to read a book . He had seen his family take the entire day to prepare for a family meal . He could not understand how I did all of the preparation and still had time to relax and read . The truth is that he was always conditioned to be a slave to time . He didn ’ t know how to flow through space and “ time ” to optimize his experience .
One of my favorite exercises to begin exploring your interaction with time is very simple and uses a visualization process .
MY TIME HACKING VISUALIZATION PROCESS
I close my eyes and “ see ” in my head . This way my brain doesn ’ t have the capacity to distinguish between what is my experience and what is my perception of my experience . I then see a completed task in the distance . You could call it the future , but I don ’ t like assigning temporal labels because I want to see it as already complete . I then see a flat ,