The 30-Second Summary
- The Problem: Most decision-making tools (like OKRs or Effort Matrices) help you choose from a list, but they don't tell you if the list itself is flawed.
- The Solution: Time Distortion. By artificially stretching or compressing your project timelines, you force hidden assumptions to the surface.
- The Goal: To break "tunnel vision" and identify the highest-leverage actions that remain invisible under normal constraints.
Early in my management journey, I realized that stack-ranking and OKRs only worked if we were already looking at the right work for prioritization. To break out of tactical tunnel vision, I began using Time Distortion—a lateral thinking strategy that forces a team to question the foundations of a project by artificially manipulating its timeline. To do that, you need to adjust the dials of time with a few tactics.
The Strategy: Timeline Expansion and Compression
Most projects are defined by a prescribed timespan (e.g., a one-year roadmap). To test the validity of that plan, try recalibrating the timeline with these three questions:
- The Half-Time Dial: What if we only had six months instead of twelve? What would we prioritize, and what would we strip away?
- The Quarter-Time Dial: What would we attempt if we only had three months?
- The 10x Dial: What if we had ten times as much time? How would that change our approach to foundational infrastructure or long-term scalability?
Adjusting these dials highlights the riskiest parts of your plan. Compression forces you to find the highest-leverage actions, while expansion forces you to consider the longevity and stability of your solution.
Rethinking Existence in Time
Beyond weeks and months, you can calibrate other variables to explore strategic alternatives:
- Infinite Time: What becomes possible if the deadline constraint is removed entirely?
- The "Too Late" Scenario: What if the window of opportunity has already closed? How would we pivot?
- Scaling the Scope: What if the program were twice as large? What if it were half the size?
By intentionally "distorting" these variables, you see exactly where your current strategy falls apart.
Parallel Universes: The Status Quo Swap
A powerful heuristic for evaluating new methods is to imagine a parallel universe where the New Thing has been the mainstream choice for decades, and you are just now discovering the Old Thing. This method comes from Matthew Varraes, co-author of Design & Reality.
Healthcare AI Example:
- What if doctors have already used AI assistance for 30 years?
- What would be the risks and benefits of removing it to return to manual diagnosis?
This swap exposes the inherent bias we have toward the status quo and helps identify the value of proposed innovation.
Caveats & Intent
These tools are designed to re-examine an existing problem space. They won't necessarily help you innovate toward a brand-new field, but they will help you expand your thinking about the path you are already on. Sometimes, a little time distortion is exactly what’s needed to find the hidden right answer.
Bonus: AI as Your Perspective Shifter
AI is a fantastic partner for this exercise because it doesn't have "sunk cost" bias. It doesn't care how much work you’ve already put into the twelve-month plan.
- The Workflow: Feed your roadmap into an AI and ask it to apply specific dials.
- The Prompt: Analyze this project plan. 1) If the deadline was moved up to 90 days, which 20% of the features should we keep to maintain 80% of the value? 2) If we had to support this for 20 years, what foundational risks are we currently ignoring?
- The Human Audit: Use the AI's output to spark a team discussion. The AI provides the "extreme" scenario; you provide the leadership to decide which insights are actionable.
End notes
- “Distort time” is an oblique strategy, part of a deck of cards developed by Brian Eno Peter Schmidt as a way to think laterally around creative blocks. Oblique strategies can be inspiring and productive when you have the will and skill to make use of them, but if you don’t have the right mental space or toolkit for that alignment, then the cards are just another thing taking up space on your desk.
- Add Dennett’s Intuition Pumps (intro video) to your 'to-read' list.
- Thanks to Ruth Malan for getting me to put this idea into words and for frequently expanding my mind with new mental models, including introducing me to Mathias Verraes, whose thread on swapping new and old concepts provided additional perspective on this concept.