(Video link here.) Filmmaker Scott Thrift redesigned the traditional numeral clock to make it shift the way you experience your day: he simplified a 24-hour day into a visualization of dawn, noon, dusk and midnight, its slowly moving hand making a gradual transition from one to the other, rather than relentlessly ticking through numbers.

Thrift’s clock, which he calls Today,  moves at half the speed of a regular clock. And he says its effects are powerful:

I’ve lived with Today since last summer, and now I wonder how I ever lived without it. Today inspires a sense of renewal, calm, and perhaps most importantly, balance…Today has helped me regulate my sleep patterns and resonate with the idea that every day is a gift. 

Living with Today stretches your perception of time to make space for all of the things in life that cannot be counted. 

Thrift’s Kickstarter to raise money to fabricate the clock ends in less than three days (and has far exceeded its goal). We’ve been mulling buying the clock because it curiously echoes the clock-face-based day planner we draw every morning. We’ve found it to be hugely helpful in seeing our day as a whole, and curiously more efficient than the usual linear planner. More IN our day, we’ve felt less stress and been palpably happier. We’re wondering if Thrift’s clock might amplify this view, and work well in tandem with our crude-but-effective planner.

Sally Schneider

 

Another, totally low-tech way to envision the day is to reflect on Sokan‘s lovely haiku:

Emerging from a perfect sphere;
Yet how long it is:
A spring day.

 

How wonderful to experience the day as spacious…

 

Check out Thrift’s other brilliant clock, The Present, that tracks a full year on its face.