This chapter addresses the interplay of repetition and novelty as central themes of temporal orderings and explores their significance for personal experience, social structures, and cultural practices. Repetition offers stability and orientation, while novelty creates contrasts and enables inventive developments. Both elements work together (giving rise to ‘variation’) to avoid fatigue as well as chaos. With regard to well-being, new experiences are particularly relevant in monotonous environments, while stable rhythms provide orientation in variable environments. Socially, this interplay manifests itself in timetables, holidays, and legal systems, which ensure stability through repetition but leave room for adaptation. Even rituals, such as religious ceremonies or public and private commemorations, not only have repetitive elements but also leave room for some novelty to keep their meanings alive. Something similar holds for the historical development of the understanding of time and is even true of clocks and clockmaking. This chapter ends with an analysis of how the timescales (or the frequency range) of human action expands and how this changes human perceptions and responsibilities—think of climate change for long-range and digitisation for short-term effects.