When I was in school I took two Time and Motion Studies classes. T&M studies look at sequences of movements required to perform a task and the amount of time required to do so. Then, the observer recommends movements to eliminate, or more efficient ways to move, in order to save time.
One of the first T&M studies looked at how men loaded and unloaded boxcars and suggested different ways to perform the job. The upshot was quicker transport of goods. T&M made just about everything more efficient, including manufacturing assembly lines.
I’ve applied T&M in my business life, but I’ve mostly used it to organize the avalanche of pills I swallow every day, how I brush my teeth, and the order of steps to perform other routine tasks like making coffee and raking leaves.
It’s a numbers based occupation. I always know how many people are in a room at any given time, how many birds are on the wire in the morning, and the speed elevators travel from one floor to the next. Speed is time and it can seem relative even if it isn’t. For example, if you get on an elevator and hear The Cowsills, the elevator moves much slower than you expect. CSN&Y gets you between floors much faster.
One of my old friends, Gary Siebert, was a psychiatrist by day and, twice a year, a pheasant hunter. We were out in a cornfield one day when he tripped and fell into a water-filled pothole. You don’t really want to be around a clumsy guy with a 12 gauge, but I politely held my counsel. It wasn’t the first time he’d fallen, and the poor guy was wet from toe to tongue, and getting out of the pothole caused him to roll over a bunch of corn stalks and render them useless. “This acre will be half a bushel short when it gets picked,” I said, innocently, and simply as a matter of observation.
“You have an Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder,” he snapped, and stomped off into the ears.
“And you’re all wet,” I wish I’d said.
Har, har!