I know journaling might be one, and doing new things from time to time, curious if people have other tips
Time seeming shorter is just the temporal equivalent of depth perception. You have to put as many distinct things between your present and the future, in the same way distinct objects between you and a distant object makes it look further away.
This is the answer.
Our brains are designed to ignore ordinary things. When you drive the same way to work, do the same things at work all day, come home and ready a familiar meal, then veg out in front of the TV, you’ve done nothing memorable all day.
Then, in retrospect, the days seem to fly by because you don’t have any memory of the time passing.
If you deliberately inject novelty into your days, then you’ll have more memory of the events, and your days will seem full.
The other ones here related to memory (journaling both for being mindful of your days but also to reread and trigger the memory retention curve) will also help. I haven’t seen sleep mentioned, but good sleep is also key to being alert enough to encode memories, having the energy to try novel things, and rest enough to store and process memories for longer-term retention.
Research also says a 20 minute mid-day nap can help with memory formation (not 50 minutes; a full sleep cycle will make you groggy in the afternoon.)
Plank position slows things down a lot.
Time always seems to go by slower when you’re bored and/or miserable. Do with that what you will.
Practice mindfulness and enjoy the present.
Trying new things and having meditative hobbies like journaling does help some, but time is a real mother fucker regardless. I’m a person who has done many many new things and filled notebooks with drawings and poems. Those things still become blips of the past as I hurtle onwards through aging. Nothing can really save you from that feeling. It’s a curse we all bear as part of our beautiful and terrible awareness. You can, in the moment, perceive it a bit slower though.
It’s a simple trick and it doesn’t last long, but it can help if the feeling is particularly crushing at the moment. Stare at a clock; preferably a noisy analog one with a seconds hand. Concentrate on the passing of that seconds hand, the noise it makes, the motion of the clockwork, the way the light reflects off it’s face and shit like that. Relax your muscles and let the passage of seconds lull you into boredom. Before you know it, time seems less speedy and you’re ready to do whatever else.
It’s basic, but it’s something very few people actually make time for. Mainly because it’s boring lol, but that’s kind of the point. Want time to slow down? Allow yourself to be bored. Not bored while at work bored either. Proper doing absolutely nothing but staring at a ticking clock bored. Time will slow to a crawl until you start doing stuff again.
