We often think of our lives in big chunks—birthdays, career milestones, or yearly vacations. But life actually happens in the tiny, frantic ticking of milliseconds and the slow, steady crawl of decades.
I’ve always been fascinated by this scale of time, so I decided to build something to help us actually see it. Using a Claude Artifact, I created a “Life Visualizer” that puts your entire existence into perspective, from the blink of an eye to the legacy of a lifetime.
Why Visualize Time?
Time is notoriously difficult for the human brain to grasp. We overestimate what we can do in a day but underestimate what we can do in a decade. When you see your life laid out—not just as a calendar, but as a fluid spectrum of scales—it changes your perspective.
How the App Works
The app breaks down your journey into distinct “lenses”:
The Micro Scale (Milliseconds to Minutes): This is the “now.” It shows the frantic pace of the biological and digital world.
The Daily Scale (Hours to Days): The rhythm of our routines and habits.
The Macro Scale (Years to Decades): The “big picture” view that shows where you’ve been and how much room there is still to grow.
The “Aha!” Moment
When I first ran the app, the most striking thing wasn’t how much time had passed, but how much potential was visible in the future sections. Seeing a decade represented visually makes it feel less like a vague concept and more like a canvas waiting to be painted.
Built with Claude Artifacts
This project was a fun experiment in rapid prototyping. By leveraging Claude’s ability to generate interactive React components, I was able to move from an idea to a fully functional, shareable visualization in record time. It’s a testament to how AI can help us build tools that help us understand ourselves better.
