By Frank Lucasale 
Stanford- Most people believe time speeds up because life gets busier.
But according to research discussed by Stanford-affiliated psychologist Albert Bandura, the real reason is more unsettling:
As adults, we stop forming new memories.
When memory creation slows, the brain compresses time. Days blur. Weeks vanish. Years feel like a repeated loop.
Time doesn’t actually move faster — it just leaves fewer traces behind.
The Psychology of Time Loss
As children, nearly everything is new:
- New places
- New people
- New rules
- New sensations
The brain records these experiences in detail. More memories = longer perceived time.
In adulthood, life becomes automated:
- Same routes
- Same work
- Same conversations
- Same screens
When experiences stop being novel, the brain stops fully encoding them. Instead, it compresses similar days into a single memory file.
That’s why:
- A childhood summer felt endless
- An adult year disappears in a blink
The more identical your days become, the faster they seem to vanish.
Autopilot Is the Real Time Thief
The brain is efficient by design.
When it recognizes patterns, it conserves energy by reducing attention.
This efficiency has a cost.
On autopilot:
- Attention drops
- Memory encoding weakens
- Time perception shrinks
You don’t remember much — so it feels like nothing happened.
The One Research-Backed Habit That Slows Time
Bandura emphasizes a deceptively simple principle:
Introduce novelty — daily.
Not dramatic adventures.
Not constant travel.
Just experiences your brain cannot automate.
Examples:
- Take a different route home
- Visit a new café
- Change your workout location
- Learn a small new skill
- Talk to someone outside your usual circle
- Work in a different environment
Each small disruption forces the brain to re-engage attention and form fresh memory traces.
That’s how time stretches.
Why Novelty Expands Time
Novelty does three things:
- Reactivates attention
- Strengthens memory formation
- Slows subjective time perception
When attention turns back on, life feels fuller — not longer in hours, but denser in experience.
Predictability makes time evaporate.
Curiosity makes it expand.
You Don’t Need More Time — You Need More Texture
The solution isn’t better scheduling.
It’s better encoding.
When days feel empty, it’s rarely because nothing happened — it’s because nothing registered.
- Add friction.
- Add curiosity.
- Add small disruptions.
Your week won’t gain hours — but it will feel like it did.
Final Thought
Time doesn’t disappear when you’re busy.
It disappears when your brain stops paying attention.
If you want life to feel larger instead of shorter, don’t chase productivity.
Chase novelty.