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- Temporal Blindness-Why We Misjudge Time and Its Impact on Our Lives
Temporal Blindness-Why We Misjudge Time and Its Impact on Our Lives
How Misjudging Time Shapes Decisions, Goals, and Performance
Welcome to The Smarter Brain, a curation of thought-provoking ideas and actionable reads to help you build better habits and become more productive.
Happy reading - See you on Wednesday!
Cheers,
The Smarter Brain Team
Estimated Reading Time: 2 mins
3 Ideas for Better Habits
Time Is Finite
Oliver Burkeman is a journalist and author who examines our distorted relationship with time, productivity, and long-term fulfillment.
“You can’t make time for everything, so you have to make choices.”
Stuck in Now
Philip Zimbardo is a psychologist best known for research on behavior and perception.
“Our attitudes toward time powerfully influence many of our judgments, decisions, and actions.”
Meet Your Future Self
Hal Hershfield is a behavioral scientist studying how connection to our future identity affects planning, saving, and life choices.
“When people feel connected to their future selves, they make better long-term decisions.”
Source: Your Future Self Tomorrow Better
We’re emotional creatures. That’s a good thing, until our emotions get out of balance and lead us to say or do something we later regret. Emotional intelligence helps you make emotions work for you, instead of against you.
Productivity Tools and Resources
Why Does Time Seem to Fly or Drag?
Attention and context shape our temporal awareness: when you’re busy or absorbed, time ,,flies,’’ whereas boredom makes it drag - and memory markers influence how we remember those intervals later. Discover what makes moments speed up or slow down.
Time Files By Faster As We Get Older - Here’s Why
As we age, familiar routines and fewer novel memories make years seem to slip by more quickly - a fundamental bias in how the brain organizes past experience. Explore the psychology behind this temporal distortion.
Write to Tomorrow
FutureMe - Lets you write letters to your future self, strengthening emotional connection across time.
Reveal Time Reality
Toggl Track - Shows where time actually goes-countering planning illusions and temporal blindness.
What We're Reading
The Future You Lab Newsletter - Weekly insights on human psychology and behavior-especially how we perceive time, connect with our future selves, and make long-term decisions that shape life outcomes.
The Behavioural Science Digest Newsletter - Monthly newsletter exploring behavioral science, decision-making, biases like present-bias and temporal discounting, and how cognitive patterns influence how we value the present vs the future.
Brain Food
Today I Learned: When you’re bored, time feels like it drags on, but when you’re enjoying yourself, hours can seem to disappear in minutes. (Source)
Science: Neuroscience shows that the brain does not have a single ,,time center.’’ Instead, time perception in constructed by multiple brain systems (including the basal ganglia and prefrontal cortex), which track change, memory, and prediction. (Source)
Have a productive rest of your week,
The Smarter Brain Team
Resource Spotlight
Temporal Blindness: Why We Misjudge Time
Monthly dispatches rooted in neuroscience, not noise-this one explores why some people are always late, how our brains distort time, and how habits, personality, and biology conspire against the clock.
Time Perception: How the Mind Shapes the Flow of Time
Monthly dispatches rooted in neuroscience, not noise-this one dives into the science of how your brain constructs time itself. Time isn’t simply a ticking clock; it’s a subjective experience woven from attention, memory, emotion, and novelty. Learn why moments fly when you’re absorbed and drag when you’re bored, how our internal clocks differ from objective seconds and minutes, and why the way you experience time can reshape your sense of reality.
Time Blindness: When Time Slips Through Your Grip
Monthly dispatches rooted in neuroscience, not noise-this one helps you recognize what time blindness really feels like, why some people chronically lose track of time, and how it shapes relationships, productivity, and daily life.
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