What's your Time Perspective?
Are you someone that gets stuck in the past? Perhaps you’re one of those people who lives for the moment? Or are you always looking ahead to the future? Our time perspective, plays a key role in virtually every decision we make. Our time perspectives come from our day-to-day experiences and these experiences determine our actions as well as what we have pre-determined the outcome will be.
This questionnaire will help you establish your most dominant time perspective(s).
Source: ZTPI - Zimbardo & Boyd (1999)
Past-Negative
People with a ‘Past-Negative’ Time Perspective
tend to focus on negative experiences and what has gone wrong in the past. They live in a world of regrets, ‘what could have beens’ and generally have a pessimistic view of their lives and the world. They prefer to think of themselves as ‘realists’ - they believe the way they view the world is ‘the true’ reality
.
Past-Positive
People with a 'Past-Positive’ Time Perspective
take a nostalgic view of the past and look back on the ‘good old days’. They tend to stay in close contact with family and friends and have happy romantic relationships. They can however be overly cautious and have a ‘better safe than sorry’ approach which can hold them back.
Present-Hedonistic
People with a ‘Present-Hedonistic’ Time Perspective
are dominated by pleasure-seeking impulses, and are reluctant to postpone feeling good for the sake of a greater gain later. A ‘live for the moment’ type that is popular but often live a less healthy lifestyle and take more risks.
Present-Fatalistic
People with a ‘Present-Fatalistic’ Time Perspective
feel their fate is pre-determined and believe they have very little or no control over what happens to them. This could be influenced by religious beliefs or a realistic assessment of living with extreme hardships.
Future-Orientated
People with a ‘Future-Orientated’ Time Perspective
are always thinking ahead, plan for the future, and their decisions. They are extremely hard workers and believe their efforts will lead to success. Their investment in their future can come at the cost of close relationships and recreation time.
I often think of what I should have done differently in my life.
Painful past experiences often replay in my mind.
I've taken my fair share of rejection in the past.
The past has too many unpleasant memories that I prefer not to think about.
I've made mistakes in the past that I wish I could undo.
I often think about the bad things that have happened to me in the past.
It gives me pleasure to think about my past.
On balance, there is much more good to recall than bad in my past.
Happy memories of good times spring readily to mind.
I get nostalgic about my childhood.
I enjoy keeping up with family rituals and traditions.
Life today is too complicated; things were much simpler in the past.
I do things impulsively.
If things don't get done on time, I don't worry about it.
I make decisions on the spur of the moment.
I take each day as it is rather than try to plan it out.
I often follow my heart more than my head.
I prefer friends who are spontaneous rather than predictable.
Fate determines much in my life.
Since whatever will be will be, it doesn't really matter what I do.
You can't really plan for the future because things change so much.
My life path is controlled by forces I cannot influence.
It doesn't make sense to worry about the future, since there is nothing that I can do about it anyway.
Often luck pays off better than hard work.
I believe that a person's day should be planned ahead each morning.
When I want to achieve something, I set goals and consider specific means for reaching those goals.
Meeting tomorrow's deadlines and doing other necessary work come before tonight's play.
I make lists of things to do.
I am able to resist temptations when I know that there is work to be done.
I keep working at difficult, uninteresting tasks if they will help me get ahead.