One hour

We've all been astonished by how quickly an hour can go by. Here are some techniques to make the most of every 3,600 seconds.

Remember to pause. Those moments are crucial for making sense of the world. Go to donothingfor2minutes.com. You'll find a sun setting over the sea, the gentle hush of waves and a timer, which counts down from two minutes while you do nothing. If you touch the mouse or keyboard, it resets the clock.

Experiment with work patterns. Try the Pomodoro Technique, which takes its name from a tomato-shaped egg-timer. Set yours for 25 minutes and concentrate on your work until the bell rings. No opening emails, no searching the internet, no making phone calls. Then take a five-minute break, and start again. Be warned that it is a surprisingly intense way of working. See pomodorotechnique.com.

Focus on the now. Mindfulness techniques can help stop your mind from hijacking your attention and sending you off into the past and future. (check out bemindful.co.uk for courses.)

Embrace distraction. A change of activity can help overcome a mental block. Make a call, dance around… In her book Wanderlust, Rebecca Solnit describes how a walk can generate a rhythm of thinking in which a "new thought often seems like a feature of the landscape that was there all along."

One day

Not every day is a red letter day. Here are ways to improve a grey one.

Don't check email straight away. It may add to your to-do list before you've even started. Instead, finish a short task before opening your email to give you a greater sense of control.

Step outside of time. In his book Flow, the psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi describes the state of being so fully and pleasurably absorbed in an activity that time seems to disappear or warp. One way to encourage such experiences is to remove distractions and commit to doing something just for yourself.

Create a "done" list. Set a time to celebrate what you've done each day. It doesn't need to be a list of achievements. It could be things you saw or heard that brought you joy.

Sleep more peacefully. If you stay awake worrying, psychologist Claudia Hammond recommends this strategy: "Imagine there's a box under your bed. This is your worry box. As soon as you spot thoughts that are worries, imagine taking those individual worries, putting them into the box and closing the lid. They are then to remain in the box under the bed until you decide to get them out again." For more on rethinking your relationship with time, read Hammond's new book Time Warped (2012, canongate.tv).

One week

A week is a long time in politics, but short if you've a deadline to meet. Whether time feels stretched or compressed, try to ensure a balance of work, rest and play.

Establish your priorities. Do you sometimes split your attention between reading a text message and properly savouring a meal? Are there times when you put the whimsical demands of your boss ahead of the genuine needs of your loved ones? Try to give your priorities the level of attention that they deserve.

Be curious. It's easy to get caught in habits. Routine is useful, but also stops us fully experiencing the world. Take a new route, meet someone new, set yourself a challenge. All sorts of unknown things might come out of it.

Enjoy the company of others. As technology increasingly replaces direct human engagement, it is important to make time for face-to-face contact and rich conversation in a different tempo, free of goals, deadlines or distractions. For inspiration, read Theodore Zeldin's book Conversation.

Spend time alone. We are both social and independent beings. We all need time apart. Periods of solitude can allow us to reflect on experiences and explore our creativity. But staying within reach is important. Feeling comfortable on our own probably directly relates to knowing we can easily reconnect with others. See Anthony Storr's book Solitude.

One year

The tax year, annual leave, school calendar, all those bank holidays … Rather than letting administrative patterns shape your year, imagine better ways to mark passing time.

Rethink how you measure time. The symmetry of the clock, the calendar's even units, the straight arrow of the timeline – the tools we use to think about time don't express the complexity of how we actually live it. Redraw the calendar to express your own experience of time. For ideas, see Daniel Rosenberg and Anthony Grafton's Cartographies of Time.

Observe your own rituals. They can console, celebrate and inspire. Even if we're uncomfortable with traditional occasions, such as religious festivals, we can create ones of our own. For secular ideas, visit religionforatheists.com.

Tune in to seasonal rhythms. Eat seasonally, notice when the first swifts return for summer, and build your appreciation of other species' relationships to time, to put our own into perspective. For inspiration, read Henry Thoreau's classic Walden.

Start now. We dream of making our ideas happen. Then another year passes while we find all sorts of reasons why we can't start yet. "The fear of beginning is bigger than the actuality of doing," says artist Michael Atavar. "The only way to start is to start."

So begin working out your ideas on paper now, even if it's just for 10 minutes a day. For more suggestions, read Atavar's 12 Rules of Creativity.

One lifetime

Even the smallest actions can have long-term consequences. Here are ways we can incorporate this bigger perspective into everyday life.

Take your time. We tend to favour quick results. But what might we achieve if we decided to dedicate years, rather than months, to something? What project can we start that might sustain our interest for a lifetime?

Expand your notions of success. Often we limit our ideas to those that we inherit from our families or culture. Reassessing what success really means to us, and including the things that make us feel the most alive, allows us greater freedom in how we think and act. Watch Alain de Botton offering a kinder, gentler philosophy of success at ted.com and Tim Harford discussing adaptation and why success always starts with failure at thersa.org.

Contemplate death. If you knew you only had 12 months to live, what would you do? And what's stopping you doing those things now? Stephen Levine's book How to Live provides practical instructions for a life-changing, year-long experiment.

Build a legacy now. As we reach old age, our thoughts may turn to what we want to contribute to the time that comes after ours. Of course, we are all building legacies all of the time, whether actively or not. So why are you waiting? What legacy do you want to start creating right now?

One aeon

If the age of the earth were represented by a fingernail, then all of human history could be swept away with one stroke of a nail file. This perspective of being part of something so vast has the potential to change how we think about our role within it.

Take a deep breath. The cosmologist Lawrence Krauss explains that with every breath we inhale an atom exhaled by Julius Caesar. Consider how this simple action connects us to the deep past. For the full explanation, you can watch Krauss speak at theschooloflife.com/sermons.

Make a long bet. Dare to predict something you think will happen in the future – for example, that time travel will be possible by 2112 – and find someone to challenge it. You may never know if you were right, but betting on the future could change how you choose to help create it. For ideas see longbets.org.

Create your own time capsule. Communicate with a future that you will probably never know via objects from the present. Or why not share an idea that may only be realisable in the centuries to come? Head over to retronaut.co for some inspirational visions of the future that were conjured up by people in the past.

• These tips were compiled by the faculty at The School of Life