Seconds and Minutes

The other day, I had a meeting that started at 9:15 a.m.

I don't like to be late for, well, anything really.

This was a meeting that I needed to drive to.

I ended up pulling into the meeting location at 9:17 a.m.

Normally, I wouldn't have given this much thought, but for some reason there was a lingering question in my mind that I haven't been able to let go of.

What would have happened if I tied my shoes faster?

***

As I was sitting at one of the many lights that I got stuck behind, this was the thought that entered my head.

If I had tied my shoes faster, I would have got to the car sooner, pulled out sooner, and perhaps caught an additional green light.

That additional green light may have saved me two minutes.

This post isn't about playing the what if game. That's not an interesting game to me.

What is interesting, is to think of the strange way that time can compound.

If I had spent a few less seconds tying my shoes, it may have saved me a few more minutes later on.

Seconds now, minutes later.

***

Seconds now, minutes later, is a framework I've been testing ever since the morning of that meeting.

What I've found interesting about it, is how deceptive it is.

Anything that compounds is deceptive.

I'll give you one more example to illustrate how deceptive this idea is.

We're a milk bag family. Meaning, we buy our milk in bags, not cartons.

More times than I can count, I've been the one to finish the bag of milk.

To replace a bag, I usually do the following:

1. Wash out the old bag and then put it in the garbage.

2. Sniff the milk jug, if it smells decent, then pull out the new milk bag and throw it in. If not, wash it, clean it, and then put the new bag in.

3. Tap the bottom of the milk jug 10 times to really let the bag settle in—this is a critical step, if missed, the first few pours are just disastrous.

4. Then finally snip the top corner of the bag, toss that corner snip in the bin, and clean the scissors I just used to make the snip.

5. New milk is ready.

Now let's imagine I finished the last drop of milk at the end of a long night, after all the dishes are done, and I was just craving a small bowl of cereal.

Do I replace the bag now (see steps above) OR just toss out the old bag and wait until the morning to finish the rest of the steps?

If you're thinking to yourself, "Shum, what are you, some kind of inconsiderate MONSTER?! Of course you replace the damn bag now."

Let me remind you, we're lazy humans.

And also, here is the deceptive nature of seconds now, minutes later...

The story I tell myself when faced with the question of whether to replace the bag now or later, is simply this, "Oh it's fine. It will only take a second to do later, so I'll just leave it for now."

That's the trap!

Because later—the next morning—there are children melting down, lunches being made, eggs being cooked, and general mayhem, all happening at once.

I don't have time to replace the milk bag in all of this! I may as well just hold the bag up, stab it with a fork and shower my child's Cheerios with it.

***

The final place I've found myself using this framework, is in reaching out to someone when you're thinking about them.

If someone is on your mind now, you don't need to wait until later to send them some long semi-eloquent novella about how you appreciate so much about them and hope their life is wonderful.

Just literally send them a message now saying, "Hey, you were on my mind. Hope all is good."

If you don't spend these seconds now, it's very unlikely that you'll find the minutes later.

Time compounds in strange ways.