- Posted: January 9, 2026
How often have you told yourself – ‘this year flew by’? As we get older (and hopefully wiser) there’s a feeling that time is somehow moving faster – months seem indistinguishable from one another and years seem to get shorter and shorter. Obviously, the rational ape in us knows this to be false or a trick of the mind – time doesn’t speed up or down – it’s a constant, isn’t it?
Well yes, time itself is constant. But the perception of it is ‘flexible’ and very subjective. The feeling of time moving faster (or indeed slower) is something most of us experience at some point and it’s not entirely irrational. In simple terms, our perception of time is based on our ability to absorb (and observe) information – the more information we’re asked to process the slower we’ll perceive time.
When we are given a lot of new information (remember – to someone young, all information is new) and we don’t quite know what to do with it, our perception of time is that it’s moving slower. As we age, it’s not that we’re given less information to process (quite the opposite in fact) but that most of the information we’re presented with is not new – it’s routine . Work, family, hobbies etc., it all tends to be the same, year after year, and so we feel time moving faster.
We spend so much of our lives focusing on the future that we forget about the now. Think back to when you were younger and summers seemed to go on forever. I observe my own kids now and can appreciate how their perception of time is very different from mine.
Take a recent example: we were sitting down for family dinner. Before she even picked up her fork, my youngest asked what was for dessert. Now, this is not an isolated incident by any stretch in our house – it seems most events can be improved by knowing what follows. My wife explained that she should focus on the now (dinner) and not worry about the future (dessert) as it was only one of many possibilities (there was in fact no dessert).
As a designer, I try to work with what’s in front of me. I have learned to focus on the task at hand because spending too much time predicting the end result will only lead to one thing – no result. The now should precede the how – you can easily overthink your strategy and method and actually never accomplish anything. Sometimes, the best plan is just to pick up a pencil and put it to paper – you may not always get the result you expected but at least you’ll get something.
Coincidentally, following dinner my daughter wanted to explore alternative possibilities and thus found herself with a bar of chocolate. The future it seems, can take many forms.