How To Time Travel

There is a way to s l o w d o w n t i m e.

No, you don't need a machine from a science fiction book. All you need is your mind.

TIME TRAVEL GONE WRONG

If you have a smartphone, then you've experienced the doomscrolling time warp. Insta, youtube, Facebook, TikTok...

Suddenly, you look up and you've thrown away hours and days of your life.

WHAT IS TIME?

Let's go deep for a moment.

Time is not about the number of minutes that pass.

Have you ever spent a day lounging, scrolling, watching TV or Youtube, and eating highly processed foods? When the day is over, you look back and ask "what did I do today?"

This is what I call a "low resolution" day. This is a day that is easily forgotten.

Even though you literally experienced a "day," did you really? In your perception, no time passed. You might as well have not lived that day at all. Does that day even matter?

Does time even matter if there is no richness in the experience?

HUMAN TIME IS MINUTES X VALUE

Real "human time" is not just how many minutes pass. It's how many minutes pass combined with the value of those minutes.

A low resolution picture has a low level of data. A high resolution picture is rich and engaging with a lot of data to absorb and experience. See the example below:

Which image would you rather look at?

On the right, you can almost imagine Taylor Swift right in front of you. It just "hits different" as the kids might say.

If these images were a metaphor for your life, which version of your life would you rather live?

Time is not about the number of minutes that pass. It is about the richness of the data in each minute.

TIME TRAVEL DONE RIGHT

If you could, wouldn't you want to:

• Prolong good experiences
• Deepen your enjoyment of each moment
• Code the present moment deeply into your memory
• Squeeze the most effectiveness from each moment - whether it's rest, productivity, friendship, a great meal, etc.
• Increasing the sensory savoring you experience in each event

If you make your life richer, you can actually experience the sensation of prolonging your life.

HOW TO TIME TRAVEL

There a few strategies you can employ to experience more time travel:

• Building your capacity to savor each moment
• Engaging in high resolution activities
• Minimizing low resolution activities
• Doing things which highly align with your true nature

BUILDING YOUR CAPACITY

Practicing ultra high resolution moments is how you can build your ability to time travel. Examples:

• Meditation
• Cold showers/cold baths
• Journaling

These are activities which require you to actively focus. They are great ways to practice the skills that slow down time.

HIGH RES ACTIVITIES

The more high resolution activities you do, the more you will experience the slowing down of time. Examples include:

• Looking at art
• Being outdoors
• Spending time with other people
• Doing one thing at a time
• Taking a walk outdoors
• Doing any of your favorite activities
• Creating anything
• Travel to new locations
• Being more honest
• Living in alignment with your personal values

WHAT NOT TO DO - BLURRING TIME

There are certain things that will lower the resolution of each moment. These things make time pass quickly and they make moments less memorable and less rich. They take the high resolution of life and turn it into a pixelated blandness:

• Drinking alcohol
• Doing more than one thing at once, such as having the TV on while you work
• Doing anything passively, such as scrolling a smartphone
• Multitasking
• Consuming (rather than creating)
• Ensuring your life is comfortable and unchanging
• Lying or concealing your thoughts
• Accepting things as they are when they don't align with your values

WHAT THIS MEANS FOR LEADERS

A lot could be said about how to apply this to management. Here are a few thoughts for now:

• You need organizational values or else you cannot show employees how your behaviors align with company values
• Create opportunities for connection, not just doing the work
• Take time to reflect on wins and losses -- kind of like journaling, this reflection helps us experience what we've done
• Give lots of specific praise -- this is one way to reflect on what has been good. It also forces you and your team to reflect on things that have happened, which helps ensure that positive moments don't just pass in a blur.
• Do quarterly retreats to reflect on the past, examine the present, and think about the future.
• Give your team the opportunity to take frequent breaks. This way the day doesn't become a blur of unconscious thought where you complete low quality work in a trance.
• Permit workers to flex their location of work: home, office, coffee shop, Thailand, etc. Working in the same space day after day puts you in the mindset of repetition and non-thinking.
• Be honest and transparent. Employees will be more engaged when they get the full story.
• Treat your direct reports gently when they share their honest feedback to ensure you get more honest feedback in the future. More honesty leads to better data.
• Discourage multitasking.
• Make work plans with limited areas of focus. Trying to change 7 things will work much less effectively than moving 1 thing. Employees will feel like they are in a blender of activity, they'll accomplish very little, and won't get a sense of achievement.

CONCLUSION

You can't guarantee you'll live longer, but you can live more. The only way to do this is to enrich each minute. You can consciously do this if you add more high resolution activities into your day.