You Can't Cheat Time

Published on January 22, 2026

We all want to find the shortcut, the miracle method, the ultimate hack to learn faster, progress more quickly, become better in less time. But reality is unforgiving: you can't cheat time.

Reading Can't Be Summarized

Take reading. You can read a summary of a book in ten minutes on the internet and check the "read" box in your head. But that summary will be forgotten by the next day. On the other hand, spending ten hours immersed in a book is something entirely different. You truly enter the subject, ideas seep into you, intertwine with your own thoughts. You create connections, generate original reflections. Long text literally rewires your brain through sustained concentration. This profound transformation can only occur through this process of prolonged engagement with the text.

"Long text rewires your brain. You draw connections between ideas, generate original thoughts, and literally remodel your brain through sustained focus. That'll only happen through that process of grappling over a long text." — LindyMan

Endurance Can't Be Cheated

In endurance sports, it's exactly the same. To run a marathon, you need to accumulate hours of training in zone 2. Many hours. And it's deeply boring. We all have this temptation to vary our workouts, to run for shorter periods but more intensely, to try to save time. But it doesn't work that way. To run long, knowing how to run fast is useless. You have to run long, calmly, without getting tired. There's no shortcut. You can't cheat time.

Strength Takes Time Too

Strength sports are no exception. A gymnast who wants to master the iron cross on rings must chain short, intense training sessions for months, even years. It's not just a matter of muscles; it's mainly the tendons in the elbows and shoulders that need to strengthen. And tendons won't be rushed. One might be tempted to multiply the sessions, shorten or lengthen them, increase the intensity. But nothing works: you have to give the tendons time to strengthen. Time can't be negotiated.

Music: The Illusion of Prodigies

When learning a musical instrument, we sometimes see people on social media playing extraordinary pieces after just a few months of practice. Impressive, certainly. But on one hand, these people are exceptionally talented, and on the other, they probably only know how to play that one piece. Put them in a jam session with other musicians or in a different style, and they'll be completely lost.

To become truly good, there's no magic: you have to practice thousands of hours, learn hundreds of songs in varied styles, play with dozens of different musicians to understand the nuances and learn to adapt.

Improvisation? It's not creating music from nothing ex nihilo. It's taking a sequence learned from one musician, mixing it with the phrasing of another, all in the sauce of a third, with a personal touch that comes from your own experiences. From an external point of view, it seems created spontaneously. But from the inside, it's a fusion of elements from thousands of songs you know. And for that, it takes time. You can't cheat it.

Listen to the fabulous guitar solo in Let It Go by the band Sault. It's magnificent. In his solo, the guitarist borrowed a phrase from Prince's famous solo in While My Guitar Gently Weeps . Can you recognize it? That's how music works. He took a phrase from Prince that he loves, adapted it in his own way with his own ideas and other influences he appreciates, to make something unique. That's how great music is born: by fusing everything you love to create something original.

Languages Are Learned by Living

To learn a language, it's impossible to cheat with intensive Duolingo or a two-week immersion course. You have to speak for thousands of hours, with different people to understand different voices, intonations, and speech speeds. You have to discuss varied topics to acquire vocabulary. Have you ever tried speaking English with a three-year-old child? Or with someone from India? There are so many ways to speak. You have to practice enormously in varied contexts. And it takes time. You can't cheat time.

Software Development: No Exception

Software development is no exception. Yes, with AI we can create applications quickly now. But to become truly good, we still can't cheat time. You have to complete dozens of different projects, in different technologies, within different teams, with different people, in different work methodologies. Experience is acquired project after project, error after error, solution after solution. You can't cheat time.

Hit Songs: The Effect of Time

Take hit songs known to everyone. You never fall madly in love with a song on first listen. Of course, just because we're forced to listen to a song on repeat doesn't mean we'll like it, but it always takes several listens to truly love a piece. Have you noticed this effect with new hits? You listen to them but they don't affect you much. Then after 3-4 listens, it's good, you have it in your head.

Why are so many old hits still known today? Because we hear them regularly: occasionally on the radio, in commercial music, in a movie. Certain music seeps into our heads through repetition. Time does its work.

Take Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough by Michael Jackson. Why is this song so anchored in the French collective unconscious? Because we all listened to it for years in the Lotto opening credits. Time got us.

Love Takes Time

Even love at first sight doesn't escape this rule. You don't fall in love instantly. We cross hundreds of people per day without ever falling in love. No one fell in love while crossing at a crosswalk. It takes time, you have to be around someone recurrently to develop feelings.

Love at first sight may be quick compared to a relationship that develops over months, but it still requires several encounters. You have to cross paths at the coffee machine, chat during drinks with friends, see each other again at that party the following week. Three, four, five interactions before something is created. Even the most dazzling love at first sight requires this minimum time of repeated exposure. You can't cheat time.

Experience and Wisdom

Cheating time is impossible. But accepting time is possible. That's what we call experience and wisdom.

Experience and wisdom are built over the long term, by accumulating thousands of different experiences. It's through repetition, confrontation with varied situations, that our brain weaves a dense network of connections. Each new experience enriches this network, creates new associations, strengthens certain neural pathways. Gradually, we develop this capacity to see patterns, anticipate consequences, understand nuances. It's a slow, organic process that cannot be artificially accelerated.

Daniel Kahneman, in his book Thinking, Fast and Slow , describes this phenomenon with what he calls "System 1" — our fast, automatic, and intuitive thinking system. What's fascinating is that this System 1 develops and becomes more efficient with time and practice. Activities that once required reflection and effort become automatic, almost instinctive. An experienced emergency physician diagnoses instantly what a young intern would take minutes to analyze. A seasoned musician improvises without thinking where a beginner must consciously search for each note.

And there's no magic to that. It takes time.

Just look at wisdom. No one knows someone "wise" at 35. Some accumulate experience more quickly and will be wise earlier, but rarely before 50. The majority of people we consider wise are over 60. That's why in Sparta, the Gerousia — the Assembly of Elders — only accepted men over 60. Among the Romans, the Senate was also composed of mature men. They knew that wisdom couldn't be decreed, that it was the fruit of a lifetime of experiences.

Why This Article Is Long

That's why I take the time to write long articles.

I could have expressed this idea in one or two paragraphs. Moreover, you can ask ChatGPT to summarize this article and in three minutes you'll have understood the message I wanted to convey. But fifteen minutes later, you'll have forgotten you read this article. The next day, it will have completely left your memory.

Here, you're spending fifteen minutes reading this article. But the idea will remain in a corner of your head.

The next time you admire someone excellent in their field, you'll understand that they had to invest for years. You'll know they couldn't cheat time.

When you start a new hobby, you'll remember there's no miracle recipe. That it will take time. That time can't be cheated, but that it's your ally.

Conclusion

So yes, you can't cheat time. But that's not a fatality, it's a liberation.

Stop looking for the miracle hack, the secret method, the magic shortcut. They don't exist. And that's excellent news. Because it means the path is clear: you just have to get started, now, and persevere.

That book you want to read? Open it today. That instrument you dream of? Pick it up tonight. That project running through your head? Take the first step this week.

Time will pass anyway. The only question is: in one year, two years, five years, what will you have built with that time?

Time is your ally, not your enemy. Start now, and let it do its work. It is powerful.