Does time really fly when you’re having fun? Not really, time just flies when you’re not paying attention to it.

Why is it that a day at the beach or with friends seems to whizz by or a date may come to and end much soon than expected (through no fault of your own, of course)?

The strange thing is that when you’re not really having that much fun, time still seems to fly. Strange.

Well, according to Simon Grondin, a psychologist who conducts research on time perception, time doesn’t fly when you’re having fun, but when you’re not paying attention to it.

Studies have shown again and again that when you pay attention to the duration of an event, you perceive it as being longer.  Much like, “a watched pot never boils”.

When you however, forget the pot, or the tick-tock of the clock, time runs faster.

Fun distractions do indeed make time fly, but focusing on a task will do the trick, too. Which is why you may concentrate harder in the morning than in the afternoon; if so, time will seem to flow faster earlier in the day.

According to www.lifeslittlemysteries.com, most scientists think that paying attention to time makes it run slower because of our limited mental resources. We only have so much brainpower available at any given moment, and so we’re forced to pick and choose what to focus on.

So the next time if you find yourself in a situation where time seems to be dragging, just pay a little more attention that should do the trick!