Time Blindness Has an Opposite — and We Don’t Talk About It Enough

In mental health assessment, one of the things I screen for is the person’s attention to time.

Some of us are very attentive and emotive to what’s in the “here and now”. When it’s about the past and future, it’s often described as hazy, fuzzy, blurry, zoomed out, uncertain or very “meh” emotionally.

In this pattern, time blindness can be a feature. If something is in front of us in the “here and now”, it has a tendency to be more relevant and emotive, and with that, there may be an impulse to take action with it. If it is in past or future, it’s less relevant and less motivating. So things can be left to the last minute and there may be more distractibility in the here and now with the external sensory stimuli and/or internal current thoughts. They may have a tendency to underplan and may have less attention to future consequences.

The opposite of this is what I would call “pan time” attention. Where one is naturally have a strong attention to past and future orientation but often at the cost of the present moment. They may be better with planning, future prediction and organization but may not be good in the present moment and going with the flow. They may have a tendency to overplan.

Of course, there is often an attention of both patterns but often with a bias towards one pattern more than the other like right and left handedness. It’s often the extremes that can create challenges.

Interestingly, as a Family Doctor, I have observed that folks with these opposing patterns often do end up together as they complement and scaffold for each other. When they have kids, they may have a mix of both. In a family system, this can be a source of strength, stress, misunderstanding and conflict if not aware. We may share the same reality but not the same “time reality and perspective”.

As a School Doctor, I often see the extreme of both in the school children creating challenges with their functioning and mental health.

I wonder if you can recognize these patterns in our patients and in ourselves.