{"id":102642,"date":"2019-03-29T10:58:35","date_gmt":"2019-03-29T15:58:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.artofmanliness.com\/?p=102642"},"modified":"2025-12-22T11:35:33","modified_gmt":"2025-12-22T17:35:33","slug":"more-footage-take-the-one-month-do-something-new-every-day-challenge","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/beta.artofmanliness.com\/featured\/more-footage-take-the-one-month-do-something-new-every-day-challenge\/","title":{"rendered":"More Footage: Take the One-Month “Do Something New Every Day” Challenge"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Poster<\/p>\n

Time is a funny thing.<\/p>\n

Even though it\u2019s a fixed dimension that can be objectively measured, the way we perceive<\/em> time can fluctuate in subjective ways — both in the moment, and when we later reflect on it.<\/p>\n

When we\u2019re bored, frustrated, and\/or annoyed, time seems to move more slowly. When we\u2019re caught up in some fun and\/or focused activity, time can seem to fly by.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason for that — when we\u2019re doing something tedious and lacking in interesting stimuli, we check the time more often, which makes the minutes and hours seem to creep along. When we\u2019re deeply engaged in some activity, we aren\u2019t watching the clock, and thus lose track of time.<\/p>\n

When we shift from thinking about time in the moment, to reflecting back on the time we just spent, time can seem to speed up or slow down as well.<\/p>\n

You\u2019ve probably made the observation that as a child and young adult, your days, weeks, and years seemed really long. High school and college only lasted four years, but probably seem significantly longer in your memory.<\/p>\n

As a grown-up, your days may feel long in the moment (because you\u2019re bored and watching the time — \u201cHow long \u2018til I go to bed?\u201d \u201cHow long \u2018til I can put the kids to bed?!<\/em>\u201d), but then your weeks and months, and especially your years, seem to pass by and pile up at an alarming rate. It\u2019s New Year\u2019s Day, and then all of a sudden it\u2019s summer, and then, wow, is it time for the holidays again? You find it hard to believe another year\u2019s gone by. And that 1999 was not ten years ago, but twenty. And can it really be possible that Dead Poets Society<\/em> came out thirty<\/em> years ago?<\/p>\n

You can often seem to be racing towards old age, and — gulp — the grave, at a breakneck pace.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a reason for this too<\/a>: researchers have found that whenever your brain participates in experiences that are novel and\/or emotionally salient, it figures, \u201cI may need to remember this later\u201d and so takes plenty of \u201cfootage\u201d of what\u2019s going on. When you later look back on those periods, there\u2019s plenty of \u201cfilm\u201d to unspool, so the experiences seem to have lasted a long time.<\/p>\n

However, when you do things that you\u2019ve done before, that are familiar, and follow the same routine, your brain already knows what to expect next. It\u2019s seen this movie before. So off clicks your mental camera.<\/p>\n

When you\u2019re young and constantly learning new things, encountering novel situations, and grappling with emotionally heightened experiences, your brain takes a ton of footage, and lays down lots of rich, dense, detailed memories, which, when looked back on, makes that time feel slower and more expansive.<\/p>\n

But when you\u2019re an adult, and typically follow the same carbon copy routine day in and day out, your brain doesn\u2019t see a need to record you brushing your teeth, driving to work, and warming up your Hot Pocket in the office break room for the 1,000th<\/sup> time, and therefore takes very little footage of your life. As a result, there\u2019s very little film to play back later — you find you can\u2019t really remember how you spent your weeks and months, and that your years just seem to speed by in a blur.<\/p>\n

Grown-ups thus face a double whammy in regards to their perception of time: their days seem to drag on interminably because their life is so tedious, and yet their months and years evaporate into nothingness! (You\u2019ve probably heard the expression: \u201cThe days are long, but the years are short.\u201d)<\/p>\n

But it doesn\u2019t have to be this way: you can intentionally tinker with your perception of time so that your days are more fulfilling, and your life seems longer — and more memorable.<\/p>\n

All you have to do is to inject your adult life with a little of that which you once had an abundance of in your younger years: novelty. Firsts<\/em>.<\/p>\n

More Footage: Take the One-Month \u201cDo Something New Every Day\u201d Challenge<\/h3>\n

To help you jumpstart this simple but profound transformation of your life, we\u2019re issuing a month-long \u201cDo Something New Every Day\u201d challenge. The parameters of the challenge are simple: do one novel thing every day for one whole month. These novel experiences can be anything you want. They just have to be things you haven\u2019t ever done, or you haven\u2019t done in so long, that they will feel fresh and different. And they don\u2019t have to be big things — even super small stuff counts, and can effectively slow down time a bit.<\/p>\n

Below we\u2019ve listed nearly 40 non-exhaustive ideas to help get you thinking. We didn\u2019t include things like reading a new book, listening to new music, or watching a new television show\/movie, because, though these activities do certainly add interest and freshness to life, and can slow down time some, in our observation, consuming <\/em>things doesn\u2019t seem to trigger the mind to take more memory footage the way experiencing <\/em>things in a more firsthand way does.<\/p>\n