Waste of time.

The meeting went long. The trains were late. The download took forever. The traffic was stalled. The upload took forever. The project went over time. The developers hit a snag. It seems everything takes longer than you think and I have no idea at all, how long anything takes anymore. My expectations have been raised to unattainable heights, thanks to technology but anytime there is a hitch, a snag, a delay or even a hesitation, the timeframe for finishing anything on time, goes out the window. I have succumbed to the best case scenario argument and with that comes disappointment when tasks are not completed on time. I only have myself to blame for being sucked into the technology vortex built around speed of information, speed of communication and speed of expectations.

I am wistful for bygone days when projects would take forever because we didn't have the equipment or resources and expectations were low and if by chance there was an early completion, we celebrated. Today, completion expectations run high for anything from simple developments tasks to getting to work on time but calamity awaits us at every turn. There is a reason for all this disappointment and it was cognitive scientist, Douglas Hofstadter, who came up with a law in 1979, that stated any task you were planning to complete will always take longer than expected. Doh! He surmised we habitually underestimate the time it takes to do things, citing projects such as the Sydney Opera House, completed 10 years past the original end date. Yet even when we take Hofstadter's law into account, we still don't finish on time as unforeseen delays, being unforeseen, are not accounted for.

So the consequences of being late, running overtime in a meeting, encountering a technical hitch or getting caught in a train strike are far more extreme than the positive side of everything working out for you. Nassim Taleb in Antifragile, uses air travel as an example, for when things go right and you arrive 30 minutes early, you have some time up your sleeve for a coffee but arriving 30 minutes late is compounded by missed meetings, missed flights, cancelled agendas and generally a more extreme aftermath to those expectations you had when getting out of bed that morning.

The technology culture has compressed time for all of us and along with the aspiration of that culture, comes a faint mist of discontent as time betrays us by never being in accord with our planning. So I struggle along, hearing the words of my Mother, "if you're not 10 minutes early, you're late" ringing in my ears and I struggle with the comprehension that no matter how well I plan, my plan is likely to be disrupted by unforeseen circumstances. For it seems no matter how much in control I think I am, I can't see around corners and the vague notion of control is just a trick of the mind to keep me motivated and galvanised in my actions.

The only saving grace in all of this, is we are all in the same boat. So next time it doesn't work out as planned, someone arrives late for a meeting and that document just won't download, remember, you are not alone.