Time

[Moses Yoder]

This looks like it's going to be a slow project. 4 days just to find out it's filled with plaster instead of lead.

I totally do not understand people's obsession with time. Take this coffee mill for instance. It is probably at least a hundred years old; if it takes a year or two to put it back into service, what is the big deal? I have a printer that I can print to through the web off a smart phone or tablet while I am driving home from work. Because of it's other features I bought the HP 4632. The pages will be there waiting for me. Why would anyone want that? Because you can't wait two minutes for it to print when you get home? If it takes 3 minutes to get a meal at McDonalds, a complaint is filed.

I pose this question. Are we actually gaining anything by "saving time"? If so, what is it?

[John Lanciani]

Time is one of the few things that can't be replaced when it is gone.

To elaborate, every minute that I save doing the things that I have to do is one more minute that I get to spend doing the things that I want to do.

[Larry Frank]

Time moves at a different rate for all people...the secret is to come to an understanding of your own time.

[steven c newman]

Some tend to think they are paid by any seconds that they can bill someone for. IF they can't bill for that 3 minutes waiting on a copier, or sitting for 10 seconds at a stop light, they feel they are losing money.

Others just have zero concept of ''FRE TIME" Where they don't have to rush around. They just don't understand that some things aren't on a time clock, 24/7......

[Pat Barry]

Yes - Saving time on one thing enables you to use that saved time for another purpose. Just remember the theory of relativity. Time moves faster the older you get, therefore it is important to find ways to save on mundane tasks in order to use that time for something more important.

[Mel Miller]

I totally do not understand people's obsession with time. Take this coffee mill for instance. It is probably at least a hundred years old; if it takes a year or two to put it back into service, what is the big deal? I have a printer that I can print to through the web off a smart phone or tablet while I am driving home from work. Because of it's other features I bought the HP 4632. The pages will be there waiting for me. Why would anyone want that? Because you can't wait two minutes for it to print when you get home? If it takes 3 minutes to get a meal at McDonalds, a complaint is filed.

I pose this question. Are we actually gaining anything by "saving time"? If so, what is it?

It sounds like you're obsessed with saving time if you're using a phone or tablet to print something while you're driving just to avoid waiting a couple of minutes to print it after you get home.

[Jim Koepke]

The time saved on Monday can not be banked until next Tuesday.

Some work can be done more efficiently so more steps toward completion of a project can be taken in less time. This allows one to be more productive.

Some feel it is a waste of time to fettle an old plane instead of purchasing a new plane. Wish I too were made of money.

Glad to hear it is plaster and not lead. Not too many die of plaster poisoning.

jtk

[Dan Hintz]

Every day I save 30 minutes of doing repetitive tasks using macros that took me a full day to program. That means I'm at the break even point after three weeks... and every day after that I gain 30 minutes back in my life to do what I wish. I could continue wasting that 30 minutes doing repetitive tasks, or I could spend it with my family and hobbies.

I think being obsessed with time is perfectly acceptable.

I also think you're missing the point of some features, which is why you mistake them for being useless rather than true time savers. For example, that remote printing capability means I can print out client-reviewed documents while still sitting in the conference room with them, yet I don't need to sit next to a computer with a noisy printer attached to it. The client gets my full attention, and my secretary can bring in the 100-page document when it's finished printing rather than have me keep checking up on it.

[Matt Day]

+1 to what Dan said

Saving time at work or other mundane activities can allow for more free time. If that free time is spent playing video games, fiddling with an old plane, or fiddling with an old coffee grinder, that's your choice. But you get more free time by being more efficient at other tasks. If that's "being obsessed with time", I'm all for it.

I don't think you interpreted Mel's original statement correctly either. I think he was poking fun at you for arguing about the dangers of lead for 4 days only for you to tell us it's not lead. I would like to poke fun as well. Lol

[John A langley]

I have a lot more time to play solitaire on my iPad if I stop reading the posts on SMC, ever thought about the guy that goes flying by only to pull up next to them at the traffic light

[Charles Wiggins]

Time is one of the few things that can't be replaced when it is gone.

To elaborate, every minute that I save doing the things that I have to do is one more minute that I get to spend doing the things that I want to do.

+1. This is more or less what I was thinking while reading your post.

Time cannot be earned, stored, or bartered. It can only be spent, and I'd rather spend it doing fun stuff than "have-to" stuff.

[ken masoumi]

Time moves at a different rate for all people...the secret is to come to an understanding of your own time.

Well said.

[Mark Blatter]

The one thing I have truly learned over the past few years is that as I get older, time is more precious and has more meaning to me. That has partly allowed me to slow down and 'smell the roses' more, but has also made me more impatient, less forgiving of waste and certainly, in some ways, less tolerant of others. I thought it was just me, but I met a guy a few months ago who was annoyed about something that wasted his time. We started talking and he said the same thing...that he (we were almost exactly the same age) found he was less tolerant of others as he had gotten older.

As others have said, time is one of the few resources that cannot be banked, stopped or held in reserve. It moves forward at the same relentless pace no matter what you do. I think that is why I am less tolerant of spending it in ways I view as a waste.

[Mike Cutler]

Moses

You take however long you want, to refurb' that coffee grinder. It's going to be a beauty when you're done. The joy in that project is in the journey, not the destination. Sometimes, that's what we forget, and lose sight of.
Some people are obsessed by time, I used to be. Some are just using it more efficiently, like Dan does with his business. There is a big difference between the two.

[Jason Beam]

Time is only wasted by those tasks you don't value. If you value doing laundry at the laundromat, it's not a waste of time -- I don't value sitting at a laundromat doing very little, so i bought machines i can keep in my home that do it while I can do other things without having to sit there and wait for it.

If you value hand cutting marquetry, then it's not a waste of time. If you value restoring machines, it's not a waste of time. The only judge of your time is yourself (or the person you trade ownership of that to like a boss). If you are enjoying the process and the journey, anyone who says it's a waste of time is narrowly viewing it from only their perspective.



It's your time, don't let anyone else tell you you're wasting it if you're enjoying yourself.