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Time Perspective Inventory

Assessing your orientation toward time
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How do you perceive and interact with time?

The Zimbardo Time Perspective Inventory (ZTPI) is used to assess your orientation towards time. This inventory explores how you view and relate to the past, present, and future.

The ZTPI explores five different time perspectives:

  • Past-Negative: How much you focus on negative past experiences
  • Present-Hedonistic: How much you seek present pleasures with little concern for future consequences
  • Future: How much you plan for and strive to meet future goals
  • Past-Positive: How much you reflect nostalgically and positively on your past
  • Present-Fatalistic: How much you feel powerless about the future and resigned to fate

Note: This survey is not a diagnostic tool. It is designed to help understand your personal time perspective, which can influence decision-making, goal-setting, and overall well-being.

Instructions: Please read each statement carefully and indicate how characteristic or true it is of you. There are no right or wrong answers, so please be as honest as possible in your responses.

How characteristic or true is this of you?

Spending what I earn on pleasures today is better than saving for tomorrow’s security.*
I try to live my life as fully as possible, one day at a time.*
I take risks to put excitement in my life.*
It’s hard for me to forget unpleasant images of my youth.*
When listening to my favorite music, I often lose all track of time.*
I find myself tuning out when family members talk about the way things used to be.*
It doesn’t make sense to worry about the future, since there is nothing that I can do about it anyway.*
There will always be time to catch up on my work.*
Since whatever will be will be, it doesn’t really matter what I do.*
Ideally, I would live each day as if it were my last.*
I do things impulsively.*
It takes joy out of the process and flow of my activities, if I have to think about goals, outcomes, and products.*
Meeting tomorrow’s deadlines and doing other necessary work comes before tonight’s play.*
My decisions are mostly influenced by people and things around me.*
If things don’t get done on time, I don’t worry about it.*
I’ve taken my share of abuse and rejection in the past.*
Life today is too complicated; I would prefer the simpler life of the past.*
Taking risks keeps my life from becoming boring.*
I believe that getting together with one’s friends to party is one of life’s important pleasures.*
Life today is too complicated; I would prefer the simpler life of the past.*
You can’t really plan for the future because things change so much.*
I find myself getting swept up in the excitement of the moment.*
Often luck pays off better than hard work.*
When I want to achieve something, I set goals and consider specific means for reaching those goals.*
It upsets me to be late for appointments.*
It gives me pleasure to think about my past.*
Things rarely work out as I expected.*
Familiar childhood sights, sounds, and smells often bring back a flood of wonderful memories.*
I like family rituals and traditions that are regularly repeated.*
I make decisions on the spur of the moment.*
I meet my obligations to friends and authorities on time.*
I feel that it’s more important to enjoy what you’re doing than to get work done on time.*
I enjoy stories about how things used to be in the “good old times.”*
On balance, there is much more good to recall than bad in my past.*
The past has too many unpleasant memories that I prefer not to think about.*
I’ve made mistakes in the past that I wish I could undo.*
I prefer friends who are spontaneous rather than predictable.*
Even when I am enjoying the present, I am drawn back to comparisons with similar past experiences.*
It is important to put excitement in my life.*
I often follow my heart more than my head.*
I believe that a person’s day should be planned ahead each morning.*
I complete projects on time by making steady progress.*
Before making a decision, I weigh the costs against the benefits.*
I am able to resist temptations when I know that there is work to be done.*
Fate determines much in my life.*
Happy memories of good times spring readily to mind.*
I get nostalgic about my childhood.*
I like my close relationships to be passionate.*
I keep working at difficult, uninteresting tasks if they will help me get ahead.*
I often think of what I should have done differently in my life.*
I make lists of things to do.*
My life path is controlled by forces I cannot influence.*
Painful past experiences keep being replayed in my mind.*
It is more important for me to enjoy life’s journey than to focus only on the destination.*
I think about the good things that I have missed out on in my life.*
I take each day as it is rather than try to plan it out.*
Zimbardo, P. G., & Boyd, J. N. (1999). Putting time in perspective: A valid, reliable individual-differences metric. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 77(6), 1271–1288. https://doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.77.6.1271

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