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As someone with zero sense of time, analog clocks let me use my spatial reasoning to reason about time. I am much more aware of how much time I'm spending on something with an analog clock


You piqued my curiousity here - do you mean you would think to yourself something along the lines of "I have until the minute hand goes 60 degrees further than it is now" as opposed to "I have 10 more minutes"?


As someone who shares this perception, for me it's not nearly as analytical. I can physically see how much is left; I don't think in terms of the numbers. It's sort of like judging the distance between your workplace and the coffee shop down the street, in which if asked you'd make some heuristics to estimate how long it takes you to get there, but by default you just 'know' it is where it is, even if you don't think of the distance in meters.

So it's more like "I have <image of clock> left" because I intuitively know what the clock will look like when the time is up.


Pretty much what claudiawerner said in the sibling comment.

When I used to drink coffee, I took sugar in it. Sugar in diners often came in a dispenser[1]. I could tell when I had the right amount of sugar poured in from one of these even though it might clump on a humid day and pour freely on a dry day. With an analog watch, I can do this for time, but with a digital I cannot.

A digital watch requires much more conscious thought; if I log all my activities and make a spreadsheet &c. I can calculate a range of time it will take me for all my tasks, but with an analog watch I can just intuit it. To some personality types doing all of this seems to be enjoyable, but it's quite painful for me.

1: Like this: https://rapidswholesale.com/browne-halco-12-oz-sugar-pourer....


I would think think this is rather common for people with a strong spatial intuition. When planning a task in steps I mentally see where the hands on the clock will be at the start of each task.

I also have an image for the year in my head when long term planning. It is dynamic and I see it from “today” wherever that is, and I approach upcoming events. It is cyclic in years but there is a difference between looking back on January which was and looking forward to the next January.




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