This article has been reviewed according to Science X's editorial process and policies. Editors have highlighted the following attributes while ensuring the content's credibility: The way time is described can shape everything from our motivation to our decision-making, according to new research from behavioral scientist Dr. Deepak Sirwani, an assistant professor at the UBC Sauder School of Business.
The study is published in the Journal of Marketing Research. For example, if you hear you have only three months left to accomplish your 2026 New Year's resolutions, you might spring into action right away. But if you hear you still have two months and 17 days, you probably won't feel as much urgency—even though the time is actually less.
Sirwani speaks about how people perceive time depending on how it is framed. We found that people perceive a duration as longer when it's described using a larger unit plus a smaller unit, such as "2 hours and 55 minutes," rather than the larger unit alone, such as "3 hours," even though the latter is longer. We saw this across 10 studies, including data from more than 10,000 online course listings and nine experiments with over 6,000 participants.
People mentally represent the time using the units they're given. When you hear "3 hours," you think in hours. When you hear "2 hours and 55 minutes," the minutes come into focus, making the duration feel like many small units rather than a few large ones.
A duration can feel longer, even when the amount of time is the same or slightly shorter. It depends on what you're trying to accomplish. If your goal is to get started or avoid procrastination, it can help to frame the time commitment in a way that feels more manageable.
If you're setting a deadline, you may want to think about how far away it feels. For example, "Dec. 15 at 8 p.m." can feel farther away than simply "Dec. 15" because adding the time makes people think in hours rather than days. In one study, people were less willing to wait a few days for a larger payment when the payment date included a time of day, because the wait felt longer.
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