7 Ways to Think About Time

How do you think about time?

I’ll give you a moment to consider it, and to notice if you inserted a word and started to answer a question that isn’t there.

The question on the table is not: how often do you think about time?

For most of us, that answer is most likely a lot. Perhaps all the time.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, re-read and consider the question again:

How do you think about time?

Maybe you’ve never considered this one before.

There are many ways we can consider time.

To get you started, here are 7 ways to think about time.

(1) A Unit of Measure

The most common way our dominant culture thinks about time is as a unit of measure: the clock and calendar.

We think about time as “how long” or “how much.”

Like currency, we either seem to have too much or not enough.

We think of the units of years, months, days, hours, minutes, and maybe even seconds.

How long something takes. How long we have to wait. How much we can get done in a specific given unit of measure.

This is linear time.

(2) Cycles and Seasons

Time isn’t only linear. It’s also cyclical.

Cyclical time flows in repeatable patterns. A flower doesn’t bloom because it’s May; it blooms in the spring, after the dormancy of winter.

This form of time is expressed by the solar and lunar cycles, the cycles of the planets around the zodiac, as we map them to the sky from our perspective on Earth.

It also plays out as the cycles of the seasons of nature: winter into spring into summer into fall.

This is time as seasons and cycles.

(3) Rhythms and Pace

Another form of time is rhythm: the beats in a measure of a song, the pace of a movie, the hum of life on a city street.

The rhythms of our bodies is its own form of time. This is the natural pace at which we move through life when not trying to conform to cultural demands of clock time.

Every living being in nature has its own pace.

This is time as rhythm and pace.

(4) Stages in a Cycle

Watching kids graduate from school and mark a milestone — as is common at this time of year — brings another form of time into focus: stages in a cycle.

Unlike cyclical time that repeats a consistent pattern, stages in a cycle marks time as a progression. You think about time in this way when you consider yourself relative to various milestones.

This is time as stages in a larger cycle.

(5) An Experience

Consider spending ten minutes in each of the following scenarios:

Sitting in your car in traffic on the highway.
Doing a hard workout.
Waiting for a phone call to hear if a loved one is safe.
Engaging in a conversation with a friend.

The unit of measurement is the same, but the experience is likely quite different.

This is time as an experience.

(6) A Resource or a Moving Object

A clock ticks. A river flows.

Time is something you lose or try to find. You might try to track it, organize it, save it, manage it, or control it.

Eventually, time runs out. People steal it. It gets away from you. You always want more of it.

This is time as a resource or a moving object.

(7) A Container

You have two hours to complete the task. The test is an hour long. The meeting is scheduled for an hour.

Your session with your therapist is 50 minutes.

You block out time for things you need to do.

Ultimately, we all exist in time.

This is time as a container.

Your Turn

Which of these ways do you tend to rely on most? Which of these hadn’t you considered before?

How else do you think about time?

Please share in the comments.