Monday, July 04, 2011

A new time saver for me

This week, I found a way to shave time off the food preparation portion of my morning routine.

Almost every day, I heat my breakfast in the microwave. Whether it is a leftover pasta dish or fried rice, I give it one minute and thirty seconds. Since I left my parents home where the microwave timer is a knob and began using keypad timers, I have typed 1-3-0-start. But this week, it finally occurred to me that I could type 9-0-start.

If it takes me a tenth of a second to push that extra button, this innovation will save me 18 minutes over the next 30 years. It will save even more time if one day it makes the difference between catching a bus and missing a bus.

9 comments:

John MacDonald said...

works for me.

Allison said...

Have you considered switching to 88 seconds? Your finger won't waste time traveling between the 9 and 0 and you likely won't notice a difference in temperatue when cooking breakfast for 2 seconds less.

David Scrimshaw said...

Allison, that is brilliant!

This is an excellent illustration of the power of different minds approaching the same topic.

I'll report back tomorrow on how the 88 seconds worked out.

Finola said...

You and Allison are geniuses...genii. oh, crap, never mind.

David Scrimshaw said...

Thanks, Finola.

The 88 seconds is working out well. Except that the first time I tried it, I was a bit exuberant and pressed 888, had to clear it and start over again.

That might have wiped out several weeks of time savings from pressing 88 instead of 90, but I'll make it back eventually.

Anonymous said...

Why not eat the food cold/raw? 90 seconds a day... plus all those carbon credits... would pay for a trip somewhere nice, say in 888 years... David F..

David Scrimshaw said...

That's a good point about the carbon credits, Dave, but I like a warm breakfast too much.

JuliaR said...

Glad you discovered this! I've been using 99 seconds for some time now and my life seems immeasurably longer.

accidental altruist said...

So great :D
I'm going to give 99 a try!