When December rolls around we’re always amazed that another year has just blown by. Where did the time go? we ask, incredulously.

Turns out you’re not imagining time appearing to speed up as you get older. It’s in your brain.

Time didn’t move fast enough when we were kids: boring class, end of school, the next birthday. And when the Big Day arrived, you wanted it to last forever.

As adults we still want some things to blow by, such as dreary desk work and long-winded bores who torment us to tears with never-ending stories about themselves.

But what about experiences that delight, such as the client relationship that’s like a tightly-choreographed dance that we step through in exacting synchronicity? In cases like these you know the heady feeling of wanting time to stand still.

So as you slide towards the end of the year and think through plans for the next 12 months, try one or more of these not-so-usual ways that I personally use when I want to slow down the perception of time —

• Meditate for 10 minutes
• Develop one or more items of intellectual property
• Sit and think for 5 minutes
• Swim in cold water
• Watch birds
• Listen to music without doing anything else
• Hand-write a thank you card to someone you appreciate, put a stamp on it, and walk it to the mail box

I’ve got big plans for making next year slow to a crawl. What will you do to make it feel like time has slowed for you?

Roberta Guise works with experts, small business owners and professionals who want to be extraordinarily visible and sharpen their marketing edge. She also enables successful women to become thought leaders in their field of expertise. A small business marketing consultant and speaker, she is the founder of San Francisco-based Guise Marketing & PR. If you'd like to know how to apply these concepts to your situation, call for a free 1/2 hour consultation. 415-979-0611. www.guisemarketing.com