Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd

The Time Paradox

There are plenty of hours in the day, but time is one thing we never seem to have enough of. In The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd argue that the way we think of time plays an important part in how we live our lives.

The book introduces various time perspectives - do we think mostly about the future, the present or the past, and are our thoughts about them positive or negative? The authors give advice on what you should do to gain a better perspective on time - try to get a future perspective, but don't let it dominate your life. Zimbardo describes how he followed a future oriented university career, and on retirement realised that he should think of enjoying the present more.

The trouble is that the more I thought about what the authors were saying, the more problems I saw with it. Frenetic activity isn't necessarily due to thinking about the needs of the future. And much of what it thought of as present hedonism -overeating or gambling for instance - isn't so much about being happy in the moment as not knowing what will make you happy. The problems of boredom are hardly touched upon at all. In conclusion, the book has some interesting ideas and useful advice, but I don't think it lives up to its revolutionary claims.

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Paperback 368 pages
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Paperback 400 pages
ISBN: 1416541993
Salesrank: 56761
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Published: 2009 Free Press

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Product Description
Your every significant choice -- every important decision you make -- is determined by a force operating deep inside your mind: your perspective on time -- your internal, personal time zone. This is the most influential force in your life, yet you are virtually unaware of it. Once you become aware of your personal time zone, you can begin to see and manage your life in exciting new ways. In The Time Paradox, Drs. Zimbardo and Boyd draw on thirty years of pioneering research to reveal, for the first time, how your individual time perspective shapes your life and is shaped by the world around you. Further, they demonstrate that your and every other individual's time zones interact to create national cultures, economics, and personal destinies. You will discover what time zone you live in through Drs. Zimbardo and Boyd's revolutionary tests. Ask yourself: • Does the smell of fresh-baked cookies bring you back to your childhood? • Do you believe that nothing will ever change in your world? • Do you believe that the present encompasses all and the future and past are mere abstractions? • Do you wear a watch, balance your checkbook, and make to-do lists -- every day? • Do you believe that life on earth is merely preparation for life after death? • Do you ruminate over failed relationships? • Are you the life of every party -- always late, always laughing, and always broke? These statements are representative of the seven most common ways people relate to time, each of which, in its extreme, creates benefits and pitfalls. The Time Paradox is a practical plan for optimizing your blend of time perspectives so you get the utmost out of every minute in your personal and professional life as well as a fascinating commentary about the power and paradoxes of time in the modern world. No matter your time perspective, you experience these paradoxes. Only by understanding this new psychological science of time zones will you be able to overcome the mental biases that keep you too attached to the past, too focused on immediate gratification, or unhealthily obsessed with future goals. Time passes no matter what you do -- it's up to you to spend it wisely and enjoy it well. Here's how.

Product Description

Your every significant choice -- every important decision you make -- is determined by a force operating deep inside your mind: your perspective on time -- your internal, personal time zone. This is the most influential force in your life, yet you are virtually unaware of it. Once you become aware of your personal time zone, you can begin to see and manage your life in exciting new ways.

In The Time Paradox, Drs. Zimbardo and Boyd draw on thirty years of pioneering research to reveal, for the first time, how your individual time perspective shapes your life and is shaped by the world around you. Further, they demonstrate that your and every other individual's time zones interact to create national cultures, economics, and personal destinies.

You will discover what time zone you live in through Drs. Zimbardo and Boyd's revolutionary tests. Ask yourself:

• Does the smell of fresh-baked cookies bring you back to your childhood?

• Do you believe that nothing will ever change in your world?

• Do you believe that the present encompasses all and the future and past are mere abstractions?

• Do you wear a watch, balance your checkbook, and make to-do lists -- every day?

• Do you believe that life on earth is merely preparation for life after death?

• Do you ruminate over failed relationships?

• Are you the life of every party -- always late, always laughing, and always broke?

These statements are representative of the seven most common ways people relate to time, each of which, in its extreme, creates benefits and pitfalls. The Time Paradox is a practical plan for optimizing your blend of time perspectives so you get the utmost out of every minute in your personal and professional life as well as a fascinating commentary about the power and paradoxes of time in the modern world.

No matter your time perspective, you experience these paradoxes. Only by understanding this new psychological science of time zones will you be able to overcome the mental biases that keep you too attached to the past, too focused on immediate gratification, or unhealthily obsessed with future goals. Time passes no matter what you do -- it's up to you to spend it wisely and enjoy it well. Here's how.

A no mans land that could have been more ***
I agree with other reviewers that placed this book in the no man's land between academic and self-help. It's just not quite self-help enough to be life changing and not quite enough to make you feel like you got something truly cerebral. That said, it is an interesting framework to help a person realize there are multiple ways of looking at the same sort of thing called life. However, for anyone with a reasonable diversity of life and set of friends and acquaintances, I just don't know that he's sold his conclusions by the end of the book. Hence, purchase it if you're trying to pass the time with an easy read - as in a long air flight or beach read, but not if you are truly attempting to understand the paradox of time. The book identifies six major ways of thinking about time, that coexist within society. Past-Negative Time Perspective - Present Hedonistic Time Perspective The Future Time Perspective Past Positive Time Perspective Present Fatalistic Time Perspective Transcendental Futuristic Time Perspective The book then focuses on the positive characteristics of the Future Time perspective while casting the others primarily in negative light. While I can appreciate what the book is hoping to convey, I know of few people that do not experience only one way of thinking about time throughout their life. It seems more the case that people vary from The Future Time perspective to any one of the others depending on what is going on their lives and the energy they carry around them. I also am not quite comfortable with the religious divisions the author comes out with. While spiritual beliefs might lead toward a tendency toward more than one perspective on a survey, the characteristics that follow as a result seem to be a bit of a fetch. Indeed, if anything,were he to be truly scientific in methodology, he would need to adjust for religious predisposition before then evaluating these attributes. Consider, futuristic people are those that go to college, meet goals requiring large amounts of time, and are more successful. He marks Buddhists far lower in this trait. That's just silly. Religion has huge racial bias! Trading money for time, seems the focus on this book and the author spends a lot of time on this topic. However, there are so many more important relationships that people have with time that go completely unaddressed by this book (Quality of time, making your actions independent of perception of time, etc). I would have liked to see more or more novelty. For an author able to write a bestseller, the expectations are higher. Hence 3 stars.

A no mans land that could have been more ***

I agree with other reviewers that placed this book in the no man's land between academic and self-help. It's just not quite self-help enough to be life changing and not quite enough to make you feel like you got something truly cerebral. That said, it is an interesting framework to help a person realize there are multiple ways of looking at the same sort of thing called life. However, for anyone with a reasonable diversity of life and set of friends and acquaintances, I just don't know that he's sold his conclusions by the end of the book. Hence, purchase it if you're trying to pass the time with an easy read - as in a long air flight or beach read, but not if you are truly attempting to understand the paradox of time.

The book identifies six major ways of thinking about time, that coexist within society.
Past-Negative Time Perspective -
Present Hedonistic Time Perspective
The Future Time Perspective
Past Positive Time Perspective
Present Fatalistic Time Perspective
Transcendental Futuristic Time Perspective

The book then focuses on the positive characteristics of the Future Time perspective while casting the others primarily in negative light. While I can appreciate what the book is hoping to convey, I know of few people that do not experience only one way of thinking about time throughout their life. It seems more the case that people vary from The Future Time perspective to any one of the others depending on what is going on their lives and the energy they carry around them.

I also am not quite comfortable with the religious divisions the author comes out with. While spiritual beliefs might lead toward a tendency toward more than one perspective on a survey, the characteristics that follow as a result seem to be a bit of a fetch. Indeed, if anything,were he to be truly scientific in methodology, he would need to adjust for religious predisposition before then evaluating these attributes.

Consider, futuristic people are those that go to college, meet goals requiring large amounts of time, and are more successful. He marks Buddhists far lower in this trait. That's just silly. Religion has huge racial bias!

Trading money for time, seems the focus on this book and the author spends a lot of time on this topic. However, there are so many more important relationships that people have with time that go completely unaddressed by this book (Quality of time, making your actions independent of perception of time, etc).

I would have liked to see more or more novelty. For an author able to write a bestseller, the expectations are higher. Hence 3 stars.

Make time to read this book! *****
Easily the best way of discovering whether you have what it takes to be a success and what to do if you are lacking in part in you attitude to time and what sort of time you focus on. I had to include a reference about the power of understanding the way we view the past the present and the future in my own work book as it is so crucial to understand what your time profile and attitudes are. Imagine if you view the future with indifference and the past with negativity you are not likely to be able to muster the passion needed to make a startup company work indeed you might not be able to reliably get out of bed every morning yet you do have the power to change this and the time paradox is packed with simpel exercises that you can do to raise your awareness and capabilities from the way you interact with time. I thoroughly recommend The Time Paradox to you.

Make time to read this book! *****

Easily the best way of discovering whether you have what it takes to be a success and what to do if you are lacking in part in you attitude to time and what sort of time you focus on. I had to include a reference about the power of understanding the way we view the past the present and the future in my own work book as it is so crucial to understand what your time profile and attitudes are.

Imagine if you view the future with indifference and the past with negativity you are not likely to be able to muster the passion needed to make a startup company work indeed you might not be able to reliably get out of bed every morning yet you do have the power to change this and the time paradox is packed with simpel exercises that you can do to raise your awareness and capabilities from the way you interact with time.

I thoroughly recommend The Time Paradox to you.

INCREDIBLE!!! *****
I came across a review of this book and it intrigued me. The book discusses deep and complicated issues of life and death yet it is put in plain words that everybody should understand. Wide variety of examples can appeal to everyone. It will open your eyes to a different way of thinking and long after you're done with the book you will still be applying its wisdom into your day to day activities. It changed the way I am living my life and I'm sure it could change yours too. You can close the door on the past, look forward to the future and live the present to the fullest! Thank you Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd.

INCREDIBLE!!! *****

I came across a review of this book and it intrigued me. The book discusses deep and complicated issues of life and death yet it is put in plain words that everybody should understand. Wide variety of examples can appeal to everyone. It will open your eyes to a different way of thinking and long after you're done with the book you will still be applying its wisdom into your day to day activities. It changed the way I am living my life and I'm sure it could change yours too. You can close the door on the past, look forward to the future and live the present to the fullest! Thank you Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd.

A Stitich in Time ****
Why read this? It is designed like a self help. It defines time historically, and gives different philosophers, psychological perspectives, as well as religious ones. It defines 6 different perspectives on time- with the issues that might come from each-both personal and societal implications.(Past-negative, Past Positive, Present-fatalistic, Present-hedonistic, Future, Transcendent-future). It addresses how cultures might operate more out of one or another-it's mostly talking in a Western perspective and from an individual look. It states no one works entirely out of one perspective (of the 6). It suggests that the negative features of each must be understood and dealt with and gives usable data to do so. I'll not summarize here these because I do think that is the value of reading the book, and better done by the author. It suggests there is a "7th" perspective they are not addressing here. So an over emphasis on "present" is problematic it suggests. That gave me thought. Really. From hearing that in my own writing. In their framework that present in one frame might lead to hedonism among other issues-, (but I thought of the Buddhist perspective and that's left noted- but not fully developed) this causes they suggest impassivity, poor planning, not working for one's happiness. There is a lot falling out of these "6" I never considered. I thought about that within a survival context, within the context of my teaching in very unstable situations-or in de-stablized ones as well as in life situations where "security" are not allowed. It seemed to fit the basic personal issues I have noted. To some extent I pulled this awareness out of noting patterns from writing a blog, looking over time at themes I found there-a blog coming out of my work as a teacher-then looking for works such as this one to address those threads that were suggested as needing to be better addressed and understood. My relationship to time and my "organizations" is a clear "need", "family" and social understandings murkily affecting my notions of happiness and living. Seems to be, as suggested, carrying with it problematic features. It offers that if you think of time as a framework you can improve your living. It suggests if you identify your profile of relationship to time, this will "help" and then gives many varied charts and material/data to know if you operate within one or another. Gives you a test. The book draws in a wide variety of folks, wide, wide citation of studies. So in this way it's interesting. It does advocate a spiritual life I think of some kind, and surprised me a great deal as I've read Kurt Lewin often taking a lot from him, and his Field Theory, and this book uses him. At length. The book has fascinating data sets. Event time versus clock time -third and second world stuff-I straddle this a bit in the kind of teaching I do of people coming into our culture. I deal in survival modes, and it discusses this. Since this is a clock time world this was very meaningful. Since I begin the teaching of "time" to first graders it meant a lot more. I have been involved in an investigation of "what I'm doing" in teaching so I can do a better job, this because in part how time was defined for the children made me confused. Our new series said "time is something that has moved on by the time you say this.' In short it failed to talk of the orbits of planets or the structures we impose. So I was looking for why that triggered and rather offended my sensibilities leading me to this. The book holds a test to inform you your relationship to these frames as I stated, never that appealing to me but it does provide you with an insight. The book allowed me to reflect on the most relevant concept to human existence-time. Time is the most commonly written word in western text it states-flooring me. I think it was day that was 5th on that list. I found that a point of reflection. Provocative text- it helped me consider my outlook on life, its impacts on my life. My relationship to time is a dominant framework, and this assist holding onto it.It would be for you as well and I'm sure your own different-what might speak here might be different. The book discusses interestingly cultural constructs of time/individual, there is a part on suicide bombers of all things, but showing them not to be within the constructs one might have held of that.In some way that tied into my growing need to understand better suicide in general. I've held certain constructs about it but my children losing friends to that have made me consider lives a bit-also I tend to be thinking that an awareness of death might lead us all to a variety of reactive ways of leading lives in response. That seems linked to time. then too I'm bound within feeling wastes of it, and my irrelevancy. So, all in all a good place to investigate. What they are advocating I think is a positive relationship to past, work in present, eye on future. A lot of the book talked about the malleability and role of memory- disarming the notions of memory of it like it's like a video clip-how it can be a distortion and can be- as they synthesized many studies-not accurate-so suggesting psychologically that rehashing old stuff isn't a bad thing it suggests more productive things from a help perspective. I see that as basically of use. My mom just came in to ask the time, so I'll close saying this served a need for some basic information and written from a psychological perspective it was relevant to a teacher who often must consider the immediacy of the activity, what the future relevance of my work might be, as well as draw upon experiences in the work to inform and reflect on praxis.

A Stitich in Time ****

Why read this?
It is designed like a self help.
It defines time historically, and gives different philosophers, psychological perspectives, as well as religious ones. It defines 6 different perspectives on time- with the issues that might come from each-both personal and societal implications.(Past-negative, Past Positive, Present-fatalistic, Present-hedonistic, Future, Transcendent-future). It addresses how cultures might operate more out of one or another-it's mostly talking in a Western perspective and from an individual look. It states no one works entirely out of one perspective (of the 6). It suggests that the negative features of each must be understood and dealt with and gives usable data to do so. I'll not summarize here these because I do think that is the value of reading the book, and better done by the author. It suggests there is a "7th" perspective they are not addressing here.
So an over emphasis on "present" is problematic it suggests. That gave me thought.
Really. From hearing that in my own writing.

In their framework that present in one frame might lead to hedonism among other issues-, (but I thought of the Buddhist perspective and that's left noted- but not fully developed) this causes they suggest impassivity, poor planning, not working for one's happiness. There is a lot falling out of these "6" I never considered.
I thought about that within a survival context, within the context of my teaching in very unstable situations-or in de-stablized ones as well as in life situations where "security" are not allowed. It seemed to fit the basic personal issues I have noted. To some extent I pulled this awareness out of noting patterns from writing a blog, looking over time at themes I found there-a blog coming out of my work as a teacher-then looking for works such as this one to address those threads that were suggested as needing to be better addressed and understood.

My relationship to time and my "organizations" is a clear "need", "family" and social understandings murkily affecting my notions of happiness and living. Seems to be, as suggested, carrying with it problematic features. It offers that if you think of time as a framework you can improve your living. It suggests if you identify your profile of relationship to time, this will "help" and then gives many varied charts and material/data to know if you operate within one or another. Gives you a test. The book draws in a wide variety of folks, wide, wide citation of studies. So in this way it's interesting. It does advocate a spiritual life I think of some kind, and surprised me a great deal as I've read Kurt Lewin often taking a lot from him, and his Field Theory, and this book uses him. At length. The book has fascinating data sets. Event time versus clock time -third and second world stuff-I straddle this a bit in the kind of teaching I do of people coming into our culture. I deal in survival modes, and it discusses this. Since this is a clock time world this was very meaningful.
Since I begin the teaching of "time" to first graders it meant a lot more.
I have been involved in an investigation of "what I'm doing" in teaching so I can do a better job, this because in part how time was defined for the children made me confused. Our new series said "time is something that has moved on by the time you say this.' In short it failed to talk of the orbits of planets or the structures we impose. So I was looking for why that triggered and rather offended my sensibilities leading me to this.

The book holds a test to inform you your relationship to these frames as I stated, never that appealing to me but it does provide you with an insight.

The book allowed me to reflect on the most relevant concept to human existence-time. Time is the most commonly written word in western text it states-flooring me. I think it was day that was 5th on that list. I found that a point of reflection.
Provocative text- it helped me consider my outlook on life, its impacts on my life. My relationship to time is a dominant framework, and this assist holding onto it.It would be for you as well and I'm sure your own different-what might speak here might be different.

The book discusses interestingly cultural constructs of time/individual, there is a part on suicide bombers of all things, but showing them not to be within the constructs one might have held of that.In some way that tied into my growing need to understand better suicide in general. I've held certain constructs about it but my children losing friends to that have made me consider lives a bit-also I tend to be thinking that an awareness of death might lead us all to a variety of reactive ways of leading lives in response. That seems linked to time. then too I'm bound within feeling wastes of it, and my irrelevancy. So, all in all a good place to investigate.

What they are advocating I think is a positive relationship to past, work in present, eye on future. A lot of the book talked about the malleability and role of memory- disarming the notions of memory of it like it's like a video clip-how it can be a distortion and can be- as they synthesized many studies-not accurate-so suggesting psychologically that rehashing old stuff isn't a bad thing it suggests more productive things from a help perspective. I see that as basically of use.

My mom just came in to ask the time, so I'll close saying this served a need for some basic information and written from a psychological perspective it was relevant to a teacher who often must consider the immediacy of the activity, what the future relevance of my work might be, as well as draw upon experiences in the work to inform and reflect on praxis.

Fascinating concept ****
The authors' examination of how people's attitudes toward time affect choices from spending money to exercising to relationships are intriguing. It explains common misunderstanding between friends and spouses. The book was wordy and dry in spots, but I still felt I gained some useful knowledge from the questionnaire about time orientations, the page on mental simulations and their effect on students' behavior, has well as the chapter on "resetting your psychological clock."

Fascinating concept ****

The authors' examination of how people's attitudes toward time affect choices from spending money to exercising to relationships are intriguing. It explains common misunderstanding between friends and spouses.
The book was wordy and dry in spots, but I still felt I gained some useful knowledge from the questionnaire about time orientations, the page on mental simulations and their effect on students' behavior, has well as the chapter on "resetting your psychological clock."