TIME HAS ALWAYS governed how people live. But the precision, and persistence, with which it is measured today leads some people to obsess over how they spend it. “There’s an epidemic of anxiety across the world, people feeling like they don’t have enough time,” says Scott Thrift. “I think that has a lot to do with how we relate to time.”
Thrift designed The Present, a clock with no numbers, just a single arm passing over a gradient of rainbow hues suggesting seasonality. The arm needed 365 days to complete one trip around the clock face. The arm ticked so slowly, it appeared not to move at all. It was an interesting way of thinking about time, and destroyed preconceptions of what “present” means.
If you’ve ever felt as if time is passing you by, you may want to rid yourself of the 12-hour clock. The Today clock looks like the mood ring of clocks, and is made to feel just as groovy. Because the hand moves around the clock at half the pace of a traditional 12-hour timepiece, time seems to move slower.
How we perceive time has a lot to do with context. Older people feel time moving faster than kids, and people who are excited or busy feel it passing faster than those who are waiting for water to boil. Glancing periodically at a clock that moves more slowly could be an easy way to trick yourself into slowing down and savoring the present moment.
Today is available in either bamboo or steel and glass and retails for $88 and up on Kickstarter.