Friday 28 March 2008

Perception of Time (or: The holy grail of productivity?)

Disclaimer: This post is not based on scientific fact. I am not a neurologist ;-)

There is something that has been on the back of my mind for some time now...

Ever had days at the office, where you keep watching the clock tick over to 5pm so you can then knock off?

Ever had days at the office, where you are totally in the zone and before you know it, the day has already finished.

I have this personal theory...

There (is | has to be) some part of our brain that can alter our perception of time. If there was a (legal ;-) ) drug or technique to control and master this perception of time, then we can truly be the master of our domain; To be able to be "in the zone" while at the same time telling yourself "geez, it's still not 5pm yet?" in the most constructive way possible ;-)

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I know exactly what you're talking about. Typically, if I'm really into what I'm doing I can get there. It usually only happens to me on friday or saturday nights. On week nights, i need to worry about getting up the next morning.

But late friday night, lots of redbull, lights off, loud music - I will look at the clock and all of a sudden its 3am. So that is why my wife was yelling at me earlier...

There is one prescription drug that will do something like what you are talking about. Though I'm by no means a doctor - Ritalin. If diagnosed with ADD/ADHD this can work wonders. Seems we ADD people tend to gravitate towards software development for some reason..