When I was in high school, I thought everyone over the age of 20 was old. In my mind, there existed only little people (<12); normal people (12-19); and old people (20+).

But then of course, I turned 20. That was a sad day.

It’s strange how fast time flies. One moment, you’re lost in one chapter of your life and in the blink of an eye, you wake up in the middle of another chapter. What happened in between? Were you in a coma? This phenomenon of time flying past can be terrifying.

One antidote I’ve found to time flying past is to look for novelty. In Moonwalking with Einstein, Joshua Foer suggests a simple habit to stretch out time:

Monotony collapses time; novelty unfolds it. You can exercise daily and eat healthy and live a long life, while experiencing a short one. If you spend your life sitting in a cubicle and passing papers, one day is bound to blend unmemorably into the next – and disappear. That’s why it’s important to change routines regularly, and take vacations to exotic locales, and have as many new experiences as possible that can serve to anchor our memories. Creating new memories stretches out psychological time, and lengthens our perception of our lives.

Upon reflection, the times I’ve felt large chunks of time fly past are when I’ve been stuck in a routine. Some examples include grinding 8-hour study days in undergrad and working full-time over a summer break. All the days look the same. There is nothing new to break up the monotony.

But whenever a worthy challenge or adventure emerges, time slows down. The moments I’ve felt the most in-tune with the world are when I’m at the top of a spectacular mountain, learning a new skill or trying a new hobby. Time shrinks to the present moment.

As a child, it’s easy to treat every moment with slow, wide-eyed wonder because everything is new. Perhaps the reason time feels faster as we age is because we have fewer novel experiences.

Routines are great for productivity, but novelty might be essential for the soul.