Time is the most elusive of all elements. We never have enough of it, or we have more than we want. And ultimately, time used cannot be regained. Or can it?
I was on a summer reading binge in my 12th summer (I was determined to win first place in the Bookworm Club at the local library) when I ran across a short book about a boy who’s father was a time and motion expert. “How keen is that”, I thought. A father who studied time. Unfortunately the father had difficulty separating his work life from his home life, as many of us do. He insisted on applying his expertise to achieving time efficiency in all individual and family tasks. For example, he was convinced that one of the great time wasters was inefficiently toweling off after the daily bath or shower. You probably have had those thoughts too. So he made the family practice….a dry run so to speak…in the living room fully clothed. He had calculated that the optimal drying off time was seven seconds and the use of more time than this was tantamount to gluttony and sloth. It took technique of course. Towel in hand, up one side and down the other. A few brisk rubs for the in between parts, and voila…dry in seven seconds. They never mentioned drying hair. Maybe they didn’t get their hair wet in the process.
My neighbor in Ankeny, Iowa, Bret L. was an industrial engineer at the local John Deere plant where he plied his trade with a clip board and a stop watch. His job was to find the optimal speed for the movement of the assembly line taking into account the need for the highest assembly productivity (read this as lowest labor cost) while maintaining acceptable quality. I asked him how his fellow workers reacted to his skulking around with stopwatch in hand. He said that they always slowed down (so if he increased the speed, it would be from a lower and rate slashed his tires when he did increase it). Seemed like a zero sum game to me. He, too, was all about saving time.
I myself had some early experience with this time saving business. In my early days at my company, I was charged with the task of determining the optimal (fewest) number of microfilm machines needed for for a clerical force to smoothly process the daily volume of insurance claims. Clearly, we didn’t want to provide one per clerk, because they would go unused much of the time and would be excessively expensive, and we didn’t want to provide just one, as the clerks would be wasting time waiting in line for their turn at the machine. How to figure this out you say. Why, queuing theory, of course, with an added dash of triple exponential smoothing. For those of you with no background in the time saving stuff I’ll help you out. Queuing theory is…. well it’s…..you see. It’s hard to explain. But it has to do with studying lines. At the Brits say, “Queuing up.” So I studied how many people were waiting in line at any one time waiting their turn for the microfilm machine. The triple exponential smoothing comes in when you want to…..well, if you need to… Actually it has to do with a mathematical way to take out the statistical anomalies. There that wasn’t so hard, was it. But I was officially in the time saving business.
All of this background is by way of setting the context for the real issue. I’m running out of time. There it is. No denying it. As minutes have followed seconds, and years have followed days, I’ve found myself in the position that we all will ultimately come to. My remaining seconds are numbered. You might say, “so what, we all run out of time sooner or later. Just lighten up and wait it out.” Not me. I’m the consummate man of action. I can whip this thing. So get this. I’ve resolved to create a reservoir of unused time that I can tack on at a later date when I really need it. I’ll call it my time bank. Save time now, draw it out with interest later.
The question is what can I do now that will result in unused time for later use. I’ve been experimenting, and I don’t have it completely all worked out, but let me give you some ideas.
1. Brushing my teeth: I brush my teeth at least once a day. Okay, only once a day. After I load up my electric brush with Crest, I brush away. My dental hygienist says that brushing for three minutes is crucial. I don’t do that. No one does. I just tell her I do. But I do brush a good, vigorous thirty seconds. I’m right handed so you can see that leaves my left hand free during this time. Eureka, a time saving opportunity. With some practice I found that I could screw the top on my tooth paste and store it in it’s place with my left hand while brushing with my right. Hah. Six seconds. That’s the time I saved by not waiting until after I’d completed the brushing and then, in seriatim, replacing the top, etc. This may not seem like much time, but let me lay it out for you. I’m in relatively good health, eat ok, don’t drink too much (well, not always), and get a modicum of exercise, and have less stress than the average humanoid, so I’d say that living twenty more years to age 85 is a reasonable goal. Now get this. If I brush my teeth once a day for the next twenty years and save six seconds each instance, I will have saved (you’re not gonna believe this) 12.1 hours. More than half a day. You’re going to have to trust me on the math. Wow. You surely see the potential here. Think of what would happen if you brush three or four times a day.
2. Saving in the shower: This one is a real power house. Now I’ll admit I don’t shave every day living at the farm and all, but if I did, I’ve proven that I’d save as much as three minutes per shaving instance. Hold on to your socks here. That would be another 36.3 days in my time bank. Yes, of course I know that you’d have to shower every time you shaved, but I think it would be worth it to add more than another month to you time balance sheet.
3. Putting my pants on 2 legs at a time: This one is a little more difficult because of all the variables. How many times do you put on pants in a day? Are they short pants or long pants? Would you be sitting in a chair or on the side of the bed when you did it? I’ve run a series of experiments testing all the variables and have found a consistently realizable savings of between eight and fourteen seconds. Now, I know that fourteen seconds may sound high, but when you get older and have stiff knees, you’ll see. Just take the mid-point and you get another 36.3 hours if you only change pants twice at day. For all of you high volume pants changer the possibilities are limitless.
I’ve got a lot more to tell you, but honestly, I’m not sure I want to give it all away for free. I think there’s people out there that would pay good money to get in on my proven time savings techniques. I’ve already started thinking about the book tour and infomercials. The possibilities are limitless.
Now if I can just figure out what to do with all the time will have saved. At 85 I’m afraid I won’t be able to do much. Kind of like getting all dressed up with no place to go.
