Human beings are notoriously bad at estimating time. We overestimate what we can do in a day, and drastically underestimate how quickly a year passes. When you have a child, this cognitive distortion goes into overdrive.
"It goes by so fast" is the cliché every new parent hears. It's said so often it loses all impact—until you suddenly find yourself packing up baby clothes you swore you just bought yesterday.
The 936 Marbles
When designing 18 Summers™, we wanted to find a way to break through this temporal blindness. We landed on a concept popularized by behavioral psychologists: the 936-week jar.
There are exactly 936 weeks between a child's birth and their 18th birthday. If you were to put 936 marbles in a jar and take one out every week, you would have a visceral, undeniable physical representation of remaining time. The jar gets emptier. It stops being an abstract concept and becomes reality.
Translating Physical to Digital
In 18 Summers™, the core interface is the Grid—an array of 936 circles. Each week, you are prompted to fill one in with a memory. As the weeks pass, the screen transforms from an intimidating expanse of empty space into a vibrant mosaic of your family's life.
The goal is not to induce panic, but to cultivate presence. When you see exactly where you are on the timeline, it acts as a gentle anchor pulling you back to the present moment.
By making time tangible, we stop taking it for granted. The grid doesn't judge you if a memory is simply "ordered pizza and fell asleep." It just acknowledges that the week occurred, it mattered, and it's part of the bigger picture.
Written by The Glass Collective Team