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How To Slow Down Time - The Holiday Paradox

2024-08-27 (said on 2024-07-24 — implied: date said in the video; uploaded 34 days later) · Long video (solo, talking head or whiteboard) · Ali · recording, 15:39 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Mindset, motivation and happiness (also: Goals, purpose and life design) · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Evidence-based framing, Sponsor segment present

Ali explains that subjective time is distorted by emotion, boredom, flow and age, and that by the holiday paradox remembered time grows with the number of memories; to slow time down he recommends three memory anchors: novelty, reflection (journaling, homework for life, photos) and mindfulness.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Why time slowed down while travelling and sped up in London

  • ★★ Ali travelled a lot in 2023 and time felt as if it slowed down, and he remembers much of it; back in his life in London, days blend together and the last few months passed quickly. — 00:00:00 · London

00:01:05 — Time distortions: skydivers, emotions, boredom, flow and age

  • ★★ In the study How Time Flies on novice skydivers, those who were more scared before their first jump thought time slowed down, while those more excited thought it sped up. — 00:01:05
  • ★★ Ali concludes from the skydiving study that it is good to do things that scare you, because fear slows down time. — 00:01:34
  • ★★ Ali separates objective time, how long something took, from subjective time, how long it feels, which is distorted by strong emotions, by boredom and by flow. — 00:01:34
  • ★★ In a 2005 questionnaire, researchers asked 500 people aged 14 to 94 how fast the last 10 years had passed for them, to see how age influences the perception of time. — 00:02:33
  • ★★ In that 2005 questionnaire, the felt speed of the last ten years rises slowly with age and levels off beyond about age 50. — 00:03:02
  • ★★ One theory of why time speeds up with age is its share of your lifespan: one year is a tenth of a 10-year-old's life but only two percent of a 50-year-old's. — 00:03:31

00:04:00 — Sponsor read for Brilliant

00:05:05 — The holiday paradox: time in the moment and remembered time

  • ★★★ The holiday paradox, from psychologist Claudia Hammond's book Time Warped: a flight delay feels long in the moment but short in memory, while the holiday feels short in the moment but long in retrospect. — 00:05:44
  • ★★★ Ali says remembered time is judged by memories: uneventful periods without much change pass slowly in the moment but feel short in memory, because few memories were made. — 00:06:13
  • ★★ Ali says the memory theory might explain why time seems to pass faster with age: the young do many new things and make new memories, while most adults settle into routines. (hedged) — 00:06:42
  • ★★★ By the holiday paradox, time in the moment and remembered time work in opposite ways, so Ali says we need to strike a balance between the two. — 00:07:11
  • ★★ To make time feel expanded, Ali gives three ways to create more memories: anchors of novelty, of reflection and of mindfulness. — 00:07:38

00:07:55 — Idea one: anchors of novelty

  • ★★ In a study of students counting underlined numbers for two minutes, the routine group, always looking for a five, estimated 129 seconds on average and the non-routine group 168 seconds, a statistically significant 25% increase. — 00:08:36
    • a number in question (doubtful): "25%" — check against the recording
  • ★★ Routines help productivity, as with Steve Jobs wearing the same outfit every day, but Ali says they are repetitive, create fewer memory anchors and make time feel shorter in retrospect. — 00:09:05

  • ★★★ Ali's first anchor, novelty: seek out novelty as much as you can, in small things such as learning a new skill like a musical instrument or taking a different route to work each day. — 00:09:35

    “the key takeaway here is to seek out novelty as much as you can”

  • ★★ Ali walks in his local park every morning by the same route, being a creature of routine, but says he will experiment with a different route each time and with different coffee shops, restaurants and places to work. — 00:09:35

00:10:04 — Idea two: anchors of reflection, journaling, homework for life and photos

  • ★ John Koenig, founder of The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, has the word olika (as heard) for the awareness of how few days are memorable. — 00:10:04
  • ★★★ Ali's second anchor, reflection: journal about what actually happened in your life and, crucially, your thoughts and feelings about it, so days do not dissolve into oblivion. — 00:10:33
  • ★★ Ali says there is loads of evidence that journaling and expressive writing, especially by hand, are really good for working memory. — 00:10:33
  • ★★ Ali journals in the app Day One; filming on 24 July 2024, he read that morning his entry from 24 July 2021, a day he otherwise has no memory of. — 00:10:33 · Day One
  • ★★ Ali's journal entry of 24 July 2021 says his team was about to hire new people and he was worried, and that he was taking dating seriously and had met a girl he really liked after a handful of dates. — 00:11:23
  • ★★ Journaling often does not feel useful in the moment, Ali says, but looking back on entries shows what your life was about and helps you appreciate the passage of time. — 00:11:52
  • ★★ Ali recommends homework for life from Matthew Dicks's Storyworthy: at the end of each day, ask yourself what the most storyworthy moment of your day was. — 00:11:52
  • ★★ Ali kept homework for life for about three months around 2020, when he read the book; he still has the one-line entries, and reading them he remembers those days much better. — 00:12:21
  • ★★★ To anchor more memories, Ali always recommends to everyone: take more photos. — 00:12:21
  • ★★ Fancy cameras are not needed, but Ali recommends a proper camera besides your phone for taking more photos: the pictures are geotagged and dated in Google Photos or Apple Photos. — 00:12:50
  • ★★ For 10 to 12 years Ali has taken photos of absolutely everything with a proper camera. — 00:12:50
  • ★★ Ali calls his Apple Photos featured memories incredible: every day they show him what happened on that day years ago, and he loves looking back on them. — 00:13:25

00:13:39 — Idea three: anchors of mindfulness

  • ★★ A 2015 study compared 42 people with an average of 10 years of meditation experience with 42 non-meditators: the meditators experienced less time pressure, more time dilation and a slower passage of time. — 00:13:55
  • ★★ Ali says we create memories of what we focus on, so being more present in the moment in theory creates more memories and expands your perception of time. (hedged) — 00:14:24
  • ★★★ Ali's third anchor, mindfulness: his key takeaway is to consider practising meditation or mindfulness in some way. — 00:14:24
  • ★★ Besides meditation apps, Ali suggests simpler mindfulness: a walk without your phone or headphones, or yoga, which he calls meditation plus movement. — 00:14:53
  • ★★ Ali advises giving your entire attention to one thing at a time: multitasking, such as eating while watching YouTube and scrolling TikTok, creates far fewer memories. — 00:14:53 · YouTube, TikTok

00:15:22 — Sign-off and a question for comments

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: holiday paradox · memory anchors · mindfulness

Also: People: Claudia Hammond · John Koenig · Matthew Dicks · Steve Jobs (entrepreneur)

Works: Storyworthy · The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows · Time Warped

Organizations: TikTok · YouTube

Concepts: expressive writing · Flow state · homework for life · meditation · working memory

Places: London

Products: Apple Photos · Day One

Also centred on mindfulness: 7 Science-Backed Ways to Reduce Stress · How to stop feeling lonely (forever)

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