Time Bending for Productivity: The Ninja’s Guide to Time Mastery

Time bending is a learnable skill and something we all experience everyday.

I remember giving a ride to my two younger brothers as they had some errands to take care of. When they got back, the first brother was telling me that the second one swore that no more than two hours had passed.

But according to the time, indeed two hours had gone by since they left the house, me picking them up  and getting back home. 

The first brother didn’t seem to have paid attention and time ran normally for him. As for me, time had gone by slower as if the two hours had expanded to about 3.5 hours. 

I got to take them to their destination, come back home, make phone calls with customer support, organize my task lists for the day and start watching some tv while snacking. Then I get the call to pick them up. All these activities in about two hours and still getting some snack and tv time to unwind made me feel like time had expanded. 

I’ve had and I’m sure many of us have had times when we feel as if time had gone by at a different speed than what “real” clock time shows. 

I want to carefully consider the concept of time. Understanding the myth of time will help us skillfully hack flow. Ultimately, we want to look at how to transcend the laws of physics. 

The moment Albert Einstein found out the truth 

When I started looking into time and how I can be more productive and yet make the best of my life I came across this video a long while ago and it made so much sense for me as time always seems to feel different depending on the activity or one’s experience. 

And no, it’s not about doing more and the hustle culture. It’s about TIME to start taking control of our life. To start living life and to allocate time according to our real wants and needs. 

It requires a shift in perspective and a commitment to understanding some new mental models. The Moment of Truth: Hacking Flow for Time Mastery

1. The Moment of Truth
2. Ninja Time Bending
3. What Time Assumptions Control Your Life?
4. The Myth of Rushing
5. So, What Do You Actually Want?

1. The Moment of Truth

Activities and Our Perception of Time

Different activities have a different impact on how each one of us views time.

One simple example of time bending is when we’re hanging out with friends, we’re kicking it, we’re having coffees or beers or whatever it is. An hour can go by in what feels like 20 minutes. 

Whereas you jump into a freezing cold ice bath, three minutes can feel like that same 20 minutes. 

I remember challenging my friends to see how long we could hold our breath. One minute felt like hours. 

This shows the illusory and a fluid nature of time. 

Now, our intuitive nature deludes us into thinking that time is like this entity out there. That time it’s an actual physical entity that can start kind of imposing itself on us in almost literally our soul. 

We see time as this thing that we’ve got to kind of wrestle with and fight for and win over and constantly battle and navigate. (This to me was the most frustrating thing ever in my everyday life. It literally can create anxiety as if life is always against you).

But, time is something you create, not something you are a slave to.

Three Types of Time To Be Aware Of

Now let’s start by defining three big categories of time and time bending. 

The basic difference between objective and subjective information is that objective information is based on facts, while subjective information, or a subjective perspective, is based on opinion, emotion, or feelings.

Subjective Time

This is how we create time bending

Our perception of how much time has passed between two events.

This is how time feels to us and how we experience time. What it feels like. Information or perspectives based on feelings, opinions, or emotions.

Natural Time:

Time as a dimension in objective reality. Verifiable information based on facts and evidence. 

Clock Time:

An agreed upon measure of our perceived flow of time. An agreed upon measure of our shared perception of the flow of time. 

Clock time is a helpful tool which we have agreed on to be able to connect and understand each other.

The cool thing is that when we understand that subjective time is really the only form of time that matters to our individual experience, we can start to do and play with time and start to use the art of time bending. You can now become a time bending ninja.

Time bending means intentionally separating out subjective time from clock time. A little bit like the speedster movies where they can focus and slow down time when they’re actually going at super speed. Or they can slow down and relax when they want to be more present in the moment. 

Or A little bit like Adam Sandler did in the movie Click where he speeds up through certain things that he doesn’t want to engage in, and he slows down certain things that he does want to engage in. 

If we use the art of time bending well, and if we effectively separate subjective time from clock time can radically improve our performance and our quality of life. 

2. Ninja Time Bending

Ultimately, the subjective time perspective is more real to us experientially than the clock time perspective. It’s the thing that actually matters. 

I don’t have time is a broken statement. Time is something that is created. 

One particular phrase that is helpful to eliminate it is that phrase “that I don’t have time” because ultimately you are the source of time because subjective time is what matters. And subjective time occurs in your mind. So, you have as much time as you need. 

1. Eliminate as much as possible from your life that you know it bring little to know fulfillment
2. Delegate whatever is possible
3. Make it a habit to prioritize your tasks and focus with a sense of urgency. Make an hour of focused work feel like 20 minutes. 
4. Be present with your family, friends or hobbies. Make the best of those moments and cherish them. If you only have 20 minutes then make them feel like a whole hour by being present.

The Timekeeper Vs. The Timebender

The time keeper views time as this kind of fixed entity as if clock time matches subjective time. 

They believe that hours drive results and they always find themselves saying, I don’t have time or I don’t have time for that. I don’t have time for fun or friends or to unwind and take a break.

Whereas the time bender views time as perceptual and subjective. As something that is created and understands that subjective time is actually untethered from clock time. 

They understand that leverage, not time, is what drives results. 

And they know intimately, experientially and conceptually that they create time in their brain though thought. 

So, how do we actually apply this?

The 1,2,3 of Time Bending

These are some practical steps you can take to apply this process of bending time and elongating positive, meaningful experiences and then potentially narrowing down what could be perceived as a less positive or less meaningful experiences that are all the while totally necessary. 

1. Activity Selection: Activities that extend our perception of time

We want to select activities that extend our perception of time. So, often activities that have a high level of variance or that switch things up for us extend our perception of time. 

Going surfing is a great example. We might go for 45 minute surf, but we’re in a radically different environment, a different world almost, and that expands our time. 

So when we select activities like that and we vary those up and we’re intentional about what activities we select and where we place them, we can expand subjective time. 

2. Experience Density: Experiences that produce a wide range of emotions and sensory experience. 

This is another key element in time bending. 

Experiences that produce a wide range of emotions and sensory experience can bend time. Either elongating time, which can happen obviously in certain kinds of flow states or making time evaporate and move much faster. 

3. Novelty: Engaging with activities with varied, new stimulus.

This expands our perception of time

4. Experience Variety: Switching activities within a day to expand time. 

Switching activities within a day expands time. 

5. Embracing Boredom: Slowing down time by sitting without stimulation and being in the present moment is immensely powerful for expanding time. 

Like in the example of being present with family. Even though its 30 minutes, you can make it feel infinitely longer. 

6. Pattern Interrupts: Breaks monotony that causes time to pass rapidly. 

Breaking monotony because often monotony or can have time past super fast, where days become weeks and weeks become months and months become years, which become decades. 

We want pattern interrupts. We’re getting that high perch experience and breaking out of that monotony that can cause time to drift away on us. 

7. Flow Hacking: Accelerates or slows down time depending on the activity. 

Getting into flow with consistency and building the skill and driving yourself into flow can

or slow down time depending on the activity.

8. Mindfulness: Bringing attention to the present moment. 

Now think of waking up at 11am. Watching TV or checking Instagram for a few hours. Just kind of letting the time float by and getting lunch, eating lunch kind of while checking your phone, getting a little bit timer after lunch, watching a movie, flicking through YouTube for  a little bit and then kind of feeling a little bit lethargic and going to sleep. 

Having a repetitive day everyday for a long time makes us feel as if we only lived one single day. Makes us feel like our lives are not going anywhere because we’re not living life with much purpose or intention. Unless of course that is what genuinely makes you happy then there is nothing wrong with that. 

Compared to a day where you take ownership of your time and you choose your activities where you decide which ones to intensely focus on and get them over with and which ones to slow down and cherish. 

The difference in those days in terms of subjective time is far greater than the difference in terms of clock time. In general, time perception is highly related to performance and it has been shown that a change in perception of time instead of having more clock time is important. 

It’s more important to focus on the task and not the time.

3. What Time Assumptions Control Your Life?

Change Your Experience of Time by Changing the Content of Your Experience.

Mindfulness practice can alter perception of time. 

The subjective perception of a given hour is wildly different depending on the activity that’s being done, the person that’s doing it and even the language they speak.

Assess Hours, Days, and Weeks

Now, what I really want you to do to start applying time bending effectively is to start assessing hours, days, and weeks. 

Assess these chunks of clock time from a new perspective because most people think of these chunks of time that we tend to use in society like hours, weeks or days or months or even years as these fixed entities. 

We’ve learnt what’s possible in terms of what we can accomplish or do or fit into these fixed chunks of time by looking at what other people seem to think is reasonable to be able to do within an hour or a day, or a week, or a month, or even a year. 

And thus we assume that a certain amount, a certain chunk of clock time equates to a certain amount of possibility in terms of what we can achieve or do. 

This reasoning, by analogy, results in us assuming that these arbitrary slices of clock time equate to certain possible bracelets within which we can achieve certain fixed things. 

We call these time assumptions because the subjective perception of a given hour is wildly different depending on the activity that is being done, the person that’s doing it, even the language we speak. 

So we want to reason from our own reasoning of what we know we can do when it comes to thinking about these blocks of clock time; hours, days and weeks.

We don’t just want to infer what’s possible in an hour and a day from what we see around us because this time assumptions that we’ve learned about what’s possible in an hour or a day or a week limits our capabilities. 

We assume that writing a book takes about 18 months to two years because thats how long it takes others. 

We assume that maybe closing a sale within our organization takes about two months because that’s how long we’ve been told the sales cycle is or that’s how long it takes others around us. 

But, we want to try and break free from the shackles of these time assumptions.

One example of what can happen when you let go of these time assumptions and you stop inferring what’s possible in these different blocks of clock time based on what you see others around you doing is what happened to Ari Meisel They Call Him The Most Productive Man Alive

Shatter your time assumptions and notice what your sense is with respect to what you can do in an hour or in a day or in a week and how long certain things you have to do repeatedly take. Ask yourself, why does it take that long?

4. The Myth of Rushing

There is no inherent reason or need for something to take a certain arbitrary set amount of time. Why can’t it take half or one third of the time or less?

Checkout my other post on Flow and Focus. This will help enter flow faster and be focused longer. “How to Be More Productive Right Now: A Simple Habit For Faster Results”

Leverage Parkinson’s Law

“Work expands to fill the time available for its completion”

There’s nothing in reality that says anything needs to take some arbitrary threshold. 

There will always be more to do, fix or improve. Focus on the minimum viable time to get the results you’re looking for. 

Be Extra Careful With Infinity Work

Now, we need to be extra careful with time assumptions with what’s called infinity work. This is spongy work that can really expand out. 

This tends to be more ambiguous or creative work, big projects that have lots of room for variance when you’re dealing with those sorts of things. 

When we contract the work down, we narrow it down, we end up being forced to draw on other resources, other sources of leverage outside of time. 

For example, like energy or attention, we’re forced to get into flow. 

We have to draw on people, we have to draw on developing more creative solutions to get things done more rapidly whatever the task is. 

So ask yourself, where are you assuming a task takes a certain arbitrary length of time?

Now, it’s also really  important to be aware of when it comes to time and tasks is what’s called output blindness. 

Avoid Output Blindness

This is where we get so focused on input, so focused on the hours worked, the hustle, the exertion, the execution that we start to get a little bit fuzzy on what we’re trying to actually produce. 

We think that the more time we put out the more we are accomplishing. We keep working just to work. We get a sense of accomplishment but we forget what the end goal is.

We always want to maintain pristine clarity about what we are actually trying to accomplish or produce because often the way to get there is far more direct and incisive than we tend to think. 

One simple example comes with happiness or being at ease.

Lot of people ultimately even consciously want to be happy above all else. 

So they want to be able to have a life where they’re able to live at ease, and they end up starting a business or taking on these social obligations or buying this large house that requires maintenance because they kind of assume usually through reasoning by analogy, that these are the sorts of things that happy people around them have or do. 

So they acquire these things. They build this business and they kind of have this whole web of obligations that they’re sitting within, and they’re trying to get the business to the point that it’s sold or just get the mortgage paid off on the house or whatever else it might be. 

Thinking that somehow those milestones are the output that they are trying to achieve and having completely lost track and lost sight of the fact that ultimately all they’re trying to do is have a state of persistent elongated positive emotion. 

And so rather than trying to get too wrapped up in all that minutia, you can just wash that away and go straight to happiness, straight to the wellbeing, whatever that might be for you. 

But also this output plainness applies to all sorts of other things. 

Let’s say you’re launching a book and the output you want, the thing you’re trying to accomplish is as many people reading the book as possible so that you can have an amazing impact. 

But, then you find yourself down this crazy rabbit whole. Now you’re tweaking social media posts or creating these complex funnels or making assets that are actually not even going to result in more people reading the book and that are definitely not going to result in an increase in impact. 

You want to be able to pierce through mess and complexity and get straight to whatever the actual end output or accomplishment you’re trying to produce is and navigate things back to that. Try and eliminate the nonsense and get straight to what you want with as much precision as possible and as pristine clarity as possible, 

5. So, What Do You Actually Want?

1. Now, identify the biggest time bending activity in your own life. 

What activity most significantly detaches clock from subjective time for you?

We gave surfing as a great example where a surf that’s 45 minutes can feel like three and a half hours. 

So what activity for you is the most significant in terms of time bending in terms of either contracting or expanding your subjective perception of time beyond or less than whatever the actual clock time associated with it is. 

2. Now, identify your biggest time assumptions 

Find the tasks or the activities or the way in which you’re thinking about hours or days or weeks where you assume the most and have adapted clock time behavior. 

And then if you believe that the current project you’re working on is going to take roughly a month or roughly seven months, try and slash that time assumption and cut it by one third or one tenth of the time and see what you would have to do in order to be able to achieve that same end result in a much shorter time frame.