Temporal processing is fundamental to everyday experiences. Previous studies have reported that emotions, music, numbers, and other factors affect temporal processing differently. This study examines the influence of the direction of the counting task on temporal processing in both retrospective and prospective paradigms. Two studies were conducted to investigate how counting backwards versus forwards influences subsequent time estimation of participants while controlling for working memory capacity using the WAIS-III's Letter-Number Sequencing (LNS) task. In study-1, we conducted the two experiments (backward and forward counting). A total of 100 participants were given a 7-second duration, and within this duration, they were supposed to either count forward or backward, depending on the group they were in. After the 7-seconds, participants were immediately asked to report how much time had elapsed. The results revealed significant differences in time estimation between the participants in the backwards and forward counting groups. In other words, participants involved in backward counting overestimated the duration compared to forward counting. Further, to understand whether such results are due to processing differences or only due to retrospective paradigms. To test this, we conducted study-2, wherein all the parameters were the same except that participants were informed about the primary task before the experiment, making the paradigm prospective. In this study, we again conducted two experiments (backward and forward counting) using a within-subject design (unlike study-1). To our surprise, the results of this study remain similar to those of study-1. We observed a significant difference between the temporal estimation of the backward and forward conditions. More specifically, participants involved in the backward counting task overestimated the duration compared to the forward counting task, similar to the retrospective task. Overall, the study demonstrates that counting direction shapes time perception through differential cognitive demands, with implications for clinical, educational, and experimental settings.