The Time Paradox: The New Psychology of Time That Will Change Your Life

by Philip Zimbardo, John Boyd Ph.D.

Overview

Now in paperback, this breakthrough book on the new psychological science of time by one of the most influential living psychologists—the New York Times bestselling author of The Lucifer Effect—and his research partner launched on the front page of USA TODAY "Lifestyle" with a Time Survey and on CBS Morning Show.

This is the first paradox of time: Your attitudes toward time have a profound impact on your life and world, yet you seldom recognize it. Our goal is to help you reclaim yesterday, enjoy today, and master tomorrow with new ways of seeing and working with your past, present, and future.

Just as Howard Gardner’s Multiple Intelligences permanently altered our understanding of intelligence and Malcolm Gladwell’s Blink gave us an appreciation for the adaptive unconscious, Philip Zimbardo and John Boyd’s new book changes the way we think about and experience time. It will give you new insights into how family conflicts can be resolved by ways to enhance your sexuality and sensuality, and mindsets for becoming more successful in business and happier in your life. Based on the latest psychological research, The Time Paradox is both a "big think" guide for living in the twenty-first century and one of those rare self-help books that really does have the power to improve lives.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781416541998
Publisher:	Atria Books
Publication date:	07/07/2009
Pages:	400
Sales rank:	458,318
Product dimensions:	5.52(w) x 8.44(h) x 0.97(d)

About the Author

Philip Zimbardo, Ph.D., a professor emeritus at Stanford University and past president of the American Psychological Association, designed and narrated the award-winning PBS series Discovering Psychology. He has written more than fifty books, including the New York Times bestseller The Lucifer Effect, and lives in San Francisco.

John Boyd, Ph.D., received his doctorate in psychology from Stanford University, where he worked closely with Philip developing the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory. His professional experience includes director of scientific affairs at Alertness Solutions, director of research at Yahoo!, and, currently, research manager at Google. He lives in Dublin, California, with his wife, Nancy.

Read an Excerpt

The Time Paradox



Rooms in Santa Maria della Concezione

Table of Contents

Prologue xi

Part 1 The New Science of Time: How Time Works

1 Why Time Matters 3

2 Time 29

A Retrospective on Time Perspectives

3 The Past 71

How You See Yesterday Through the Lens of Today

4 The Present 99

An Instant for All That Is Real

5 The Future 135

Tomorrow Through the Lens of Today

6 The Transcendental Future 161

New Time After Death

Part 2 Making Time Work For You

7 Time, Your Body, and Your Health 189

More Than Your Biological Clock Is Ticking

8 The Course of Time 215

Life Choices and Money in Balancing the Present and the Future

9 Love and Happiness 245

10 Business, Politics, and Your Time 265

11 Resetting Your Psychological Clock 295

Developing Your Ideal Time Perspective

12 Out of Time 313

Making Your Time Matter

Epilogue 321

Notes 339

Acknowledgments 359

Index 361

Illustration Credits 375

Editorial Reviews

"If you are a decision maker, then you need to read this book. It informs about the central problem of how to discriminate between immediate rewards and future payoffs. The Time Paradox is comprehensive, admirably clear, and a delightful read." — Nassim Nicholas Taleb, author of The Black Swan

"The Time Paradox explores a very important topic from a fresh, practical, and entertaining perspective. Since time is limited for all of us, this book is well worth your time." — Daniel Amen, M.D., author of Change Your Brain, Change Your Life and Healing the Hardware of Your Soul

"The Time Paradox reveals how to better use your most irreplaceable resource, based on solid science and timeless wisdom." — Martin Seligman, author of Authentic Happiness

"Informed by the world's foremost expert on the psychology of time, The Time Paradox combines solid science, compelling stories, and crisp prose to illuminate how time, like the oxygen we breathe, pervades every aspect of our lives. Reading this book will yield insights into your own motivation and behavior and help you be happier, healthier, and more successful. It will also help you understand the source of many of the world's greatest triumphs and most pressing problems — from terrorism to homelessness, from religion to love, from the successes and failures of CEOs to those of marriages. Zimbardo and Boyd have hit a home run." — Sonja Lyubomirsky, author of The How of Happiness

"Phil Zimbardo, a master at making complex ideas and discoveries in psychology, including his own, not only intelligible but fun and personally relevant for nonspecialists, has done it again, this time with the fascinating topic of time perspective. Bravo!" — Walter Mischel, Ph.D., Columbia University Niven Professor of Humane Letters in Psychology

From the Publisher

"Time is our most valuable possession": we are obsessed with schedules and multitasking to save time, say the authors of this insightful study of the importance of time in our lives. Yet people spend time less wisely than money. Zimbardo (The Lucifer Effect), professor emeritus of psychology at Stanford, and Boyd, research director for Yahoo!, draw on their two decades of research to explain why people devalue time. They blend scientific results into a straightforward narrative exploring various past-, present- and future-oriented ways of perceiving time and argue against becoming imprisoned or obsessed by any one of these. Zimbardo and Boyd have cogent insight into all of time's elements and show how they can be used for success, better health and greater fulfillment. For instance, understanding the role of time in investment can lead to wiser financial decisions, and a relationship will not work if one partner is focused on today's pleasure while the other wants to plan for the future. This is a compelling and practical primer (filled with quizzes and tests) on making every moment count. (Aug. 5)

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Publishers Weekly

What can explain the behavior of suicide bombers, successful investors, and depressives? According to psychologists Zimbardo (emeritus, Stanford Univ.; The Lucifer Effect: Understanding How Good People Turn Evil) and Boyd (director of research, Yahoo!), it's their attitude regarding time-past, present, and future. Here, Zimbardo, a past president of the American Psychological Association renowned for his 1971 Stanford Prison Experiments, and research partner Boyd describe six major time perspectives. Through a questionnaire called the Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory, readers can determine whether they are primarily driven by concerns with the past, the present, or the future as well as whether they view each time period positively or negatively and how that perspective might be influencing their behavior. The authors further explore what has been learned to date about how to achieve a set of perspectives that seems most likely to help people become happy and successful. So little self-help material based on real science is published that, when something like this comes along, we owe it to our patrons to make sure it is readily available. For all public and most academic libraries.
—Mary Ann Hughes

Library Journal