Continuing my reviews or recommendations of non-planning books for planners I lay before you the latest one I have just finished for your consideration The Time Paradox. It’s a great popular pyschology book about the way that different people experience or relate to time in different wys, how that influences their behaviours and ultimately impacts on their lives.

When we develop ideas around a core proposition we consider many avenues – how the product is made, heritage, price etc. Of course we look at user characteristics too, but never explicitly at how their relationship to time influences their actions. And yet, we each of us view time through about 6 sets of very particular glasses – present hedonistic, future pessimistic, future optimistic, transcendent. All of these will influence our purchasing behaviour and our relationship to a brand.

So for examples, brands like WKD appeal strongly to the present hedonistic in all of us. Whereas brands like Burberry appeal to an intriguing mix of past positive, present positive and future optimistic. If you know you are targeting a group with a strongly past pessimistic focus how does that change your communications? How does it make your audience view your communications?

This book gives no answers to any of that, it simply explains the different perspectives. The paradox? We all experience time at the same rate but view it completely differently. There’s also a great explanation of why intelligent and souful young men become suicide bombers that you shouldn’t miss.

If you are looking for a new perspective  this book will give it to you in spades.