Discourses on later-life housing and care are polarised. Ageing in place – typically in one's long-term dwelling – is often presented as the most desirable living arrangement, while moving to a congregate environment tends to be regarded as a last resort. Such polarised discourses obscure older people's experiences as they contemplate needs for housing, health and social care. To expand current understandings of mobility intentions, this paper examines ‘time work’ – or actions undertaken to exert some agency over time – as older people with chronic health conditions and disabilities navigate present and future support arrangements. Based on an interpretive analysis of qualitative interviews with 22 older persons receiving home care in Ontario, Canada, I identify three themes that highlight the temporal aspects of mobility intentions: (a) maintaining continuity with the past and present, (b) constructing alternative futures and (c) facing precarity. Focusing on time work shows how people make sense of ageing in place and/or relocating not only in relation to their physical, social and psychological capacities, but also in relation to perceptions of the past, present and future. Time work, moreover, has implications for feelings of security in the present and a sense of control over the future. Based on these findings, I make suggestions for developing a comprehensive continuum of supports, so all older people can make meaningful choices concerning housing and care.

Variation in the passage of time is perceived against the backdrop of standard temporal units. Under certain conditions, we perceive time to be passing slowly. In other settings, our subjective temporal experience is roughly synchronized with the objective time of clocks or calendars. And given different circumstances, we perceive time to have passed quickly. Drawing from 740 narratives that depict distortion in the perceived passage of time, I formulate a theory that accounts for the full range of variation in temporal experience. This theory can be represented by an S-shaped figure. According to this theory, variation in the perceived passage of time reflects variation in the density of experience per standard temporal unit. In turn, the density of experience per standard temporal unit is conditioned by the dynamics of social interaction. In its original form, however, this theory assumes that one’s circumstances shape one’s temporal experience in deterministic fashion. Consequently, based upon interviews with 406 disparate people, I conceptualize time work (or temporal agency) as one’s efforts to control, manipulate, or customize one’s own temporal experience or that of others. I conclude with some directions for future research.