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Feel Like Life Is Passing You By? Here's How To Take Control

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This article is more than 9 years old.

I sometimes find myself wishing that I could insert an invisible day into the week, kind of like Platform 9 3/4 in Harry Potter's King's Cross Station -  a place that would take me to another reality where I could get all the things done that I don't have time to do in the seven normal days allotted to me.

In lieu of that, I'm continually looking for ways to make better use of the time I actually do have. I wrote a post here at Forbes last month about seven specific, practical ideas for using your time well. Then yesterday my partner sent me an article about how we can change our  actual experience of time - and it really resonated for me.

The article, from the "iDoneThis" blog, references neuroscience research that explains why time seems to speed up as we get older.  Most adults spent less and less time learning new skills, acquiring new knowledge, or having fresh first-time experiences as we get older; we tend to settle into habitual ruts of action and thought. And when we're engaged in these kinds of routine activities, one of two things happen.  If the activities are relatively benign, we drift into a sort of semi-pleasant mindless state, and time slips by us without our conscious awareness. Imagine, for instance, that you spend a whole day doing tasks at work that don't challenge you much; then running weekly errands on the way home; then interacting with your kids or your spouse in ho-hum, pleasant-but-standard ways in the evening. Perhaps you find yourself getting ready for bed, thinking,  Where did today go? It can bring that panicky feeling of "not enough time," of time somehow evaporating, never to be regained.

The other possibility, if the routine tasks are things that you actively dislike doing, is that because these tasks don't require your whole brain, a big part of your conscious awareness is free to feel bored and constrained.  Imagine, for instance, having to spend two hours writing a monthly report at work; it's almost exactly the same each time, and requires just enough attention to do it correctly but no creativity or fresh thinking.  In this kind of situations, time actually seems to stretch out vs. speed by - that two hours can feel like six years. But the end result is still the experience of "not enough time," in this case because you feel as if your time is being wasted  against your will - again, never to be regained.

The solution for both situations is the same. The simplest way to reclaim your time is to fully focus on the moment, so that you uncover the new elements to be experienced in that moment and your brain becomes more fully engaged.  In that state, research shows that we perceive time as slowing down and expanding. We feel more in control of our time; more satisfied that our life has meaning and that we're using our hours well.

You notice I said uncover new elements - I'm not talking about  quitting your job, leaving your family, and taking off on a hitch-hiking trip around the world. You can approach even the most mundane and repetitive tasks in a sprit of exploration, discovery and curiosity - and in so doing, deeply change your perception of the activity and of the time you spend doing it. Here are a couple of examples of how making that shift can happen from one moment to the next:

Example #1: You're driving your 12-year-old daughter to her piano lesson.  She's chattering away about some interaction she's just had with a friend, and you're one-quarter listening while you make a grocery list in your head. Time is slipping by. Suddenly, you decide to reclaim it. You put aside your mental checklist, and fully tune into what your daughter is saying. You notice that her impressions of her friend are very nuanced, and you start wondering whether she's this emotionally astute about other people in her life.  You ask - genuinely curious -  "How do you think your little brother would have reacted in that same situation?" A fascinating conversation unfolds, where you learn new things about how she sees the world and  she feels heard and understood by you in a new way.

Example #2: You're sitting in a weekly staff meeting with your team. Over the past year, this meeting has devolved into a kind of FYI-fest, where everyone just goes through what they're working on and the boss shares any corporate updates. Nobody really focuses - in fact, there's generally quite a bit of semi-surreptitious email-checking and texting going on. Sometimes you distract yourself by thinking about other stuff while people are talking, but today you're just bored. Now it's your turn, and you decide to reclaim your time and try to uncover a new experience. Instead of just reporting out, you ask your colleagues to help you solve a problem you've been wrestling with. Everyone looks a little surprised, but open.  You lay out the problem: how to take best advantage of your strongest employee's skills and passion, so you don't lose her.  You get some really good ideas, and you remember that your colleagues are smart, well-intentioned people - and that you can learn a lot more from them than you usually do.

It really is that simple.  If you decide that your life has become a series of been-there-done-that moments...then that will be true for you. And if you decide instead that any given moment can yield fresh understanding, new insight, deeper connection...then that can be true for you.  And you'll want more time in your life not because it's passing by in a blur, but because it's so rich and fun you just wish there were more of it.

Try it and let me know how it goes...

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