Until recently I liked to believe that I have a pretty good estimation of how much time has elapsed between two incidents.
backdrop
I have two options for morning commute to work, metro or bus. Fortunately, both the stations/stops are near each other. Buses usually come at random times while there is ~6 minute gap between two metros. If a metro is going to arrive after > 2 minutes (it has an electronic clock that shows time until arrival), I go to a point midway between metro station and bus stop and wait for the bus. I wait until I think there is 1 minute left for the train to arrive and then I head back to metro station and catch the train. Since I'm confident about my internal clock I don't bother to look at the mobile for time.
Unfortunately, a few times I missed the train. What I thought to be say 3 minutes was actually 4 minutes and so on. How did I lose track of time watching the traffic? Why did my mental calculation go wrong?
theory
Apparently, our brain keeps track of time by the number events registered on the memory[1]. If there are a lot of events happening we think a lot of time has passed (hence the expression longest day of my life.
So I reckon that watching the uninteresting traffic flow my mind registered very few events and I (i.e. my brain) underestimated the amount of minutes passed.
cure
The cure I use is to willfully force myself to add a bit extra time to the mental clock. I don't try to change how my mental clock works but I modify the estimates in between. So when I think it's two minutes, I add an extra minute and proceed accordingly. So far, it seems to be working; although at times this zealous time adding leads to reaching train station a bit earlier.
[1] I heard it on a podcast and was trying to get a definitive research paper source for the study. Unfortunately, couldn't find it after 20 minutes of googling. There are a lot of different theories of how brain keeps track of time. May be I will write about it at a later date.
-- I will leave you with this beautiful track called Salsa Sitar Shuffle
backdrop
I have two options for morning commute to work, metro or bus. Fortunately, both the stations/stops are near each other. Buses usually come at random times while there is ~6 minute gap between two metros. If a metro is going to arrive after > 2 minutes (it has an electronic clock that shows time until arrival), I go to a point midway between metro station and bus stop and wait for the bus. I wait until I think there is 1 minute left for the train to arrive and then I head back to metro station and catch the train. Since I'm confident about my internal clock I don't bother to look at the mobile for time.
Unfortunately, a few times I missed the train. What I thought to be say 3 minutes was actually 4 minutes and so on. How did I lose track of time watching the traffic? Why did my mental calculation go wrong?
theory
Apparently, our brain keeps track of time by the number events registered on the memory[1]. If there are a lot of events happening we think a lot of time has passed (hence the expression longest day of my life.
So I reckon that watching the uninteresting traffic flow my mind registered very few events and I (i.e. my brain) underestimated the amount of minutes passed.
cure
The cure I use is to willfully force myself to add a bit extra time to the mental clock. I don't try to change how my mental clock works but I modify the estimates in between. So when I think it's two minutes, I add an extra minute and proceed accordingly. So far, it seems to be working; although at times this zealous time adding leads to reaching train station a bit earlier.
[1] I heard it on a podcast and was trying to get a definitive research paper source for the study. Unfortunately, couldn't find it after 20 minutes of googling. There are a lot of different theories of how brain keeps track of time. May be I will write about it at a later date.
-- I will leave you with this beautiful track called Salsa Sitar Shuffle
