don’t be on time

Original link: http://www.cnfeat.com/2022/11/07/NoOnTime/

You’re going to catch a plane, you don’t want to be there on time. Because this means that there is a high probability of being late, as long as you accidentally get stuck in traffic on the road, queue up for luggage check, and run in the wrong direction across the airport… you will definitely regret it.

You need to get rid of the concept of being “on time” in your life, either early or late.

In the past, I used to underestimate the time it took to do something based on my best guess.

Very simple, this problem can be solved in 10 minutes
No problem, this report will be delivered to you by Friday
Don’t worry, this plan will be ready by the end of the month

However, there are always unexpected situations in reality, the tasks are more complicated than expected, and the problems are more difficult to solve than imagined.

1) Either apologize and slap the face, stay up all night and work overtime, 2) Or be cheeky, find someone everywhere to put out the fire, and finally cut corners and take shortcuts and hand over a semi-finished product, 3) Or worse, you can’t control it at all, and you can’t at all. Delivery, and finally had to hand over the mess to someone else, and disappeared by myself…

In fact, such a situation has not occurred once or twice. I know that I will underestimate the difficulty of things, but I am still confident that the current estimate is accurate?

Why? Why? Why?

After a closer inspection, I found that this phenomenon was summarized as “Planning Fallacy ” by Nobel Prize winner Daniel Kahneman as early as 1976, which refers to people’s tendency to underestimate the time required for things to be completed, even if this Things have been done before.

In one study, 37 students were asked how long they thought it would take them to complete their dissertation. When these students were asked to estimate the completion time of the thesis under the assumption that “everything goes as smoothly as possible,” their average estimate was 27.4 days.

And when they were asked how long it would take to complete the dissertation if “everything couldn’t get any worse,” their average estimate was 48.6 days.

In the end, the students actually took an average of 55.5 days to complete their dissertation, and only 30% of the students completed the assignment within their estimated time.

The solution to this problem is also very simple, try adding a 50% buffer time strategy.

If it takes you an hour to get to the airport, add an extra 30 minutes, if you set aside two hours for the annual wrap-up meeting, add another hour to your expectations, and if you expect it to take two days to complete the work, you might as well Add a day.

In this way, if you encounter a traffic jam, you will not be too impatient, you will have a calmer mind when you have a meeting, and you will be more relaxed and comfortable when you finish your work.

Once, I needed to teach a 2-hour course and prepare a complete outline and sufficient content, but in the middle of the session, the organizer temporarily inserted the session, which took 45 minutes, so I had to change the plan and plan to compress the original content a lot. I took it in a hurry, and only left 5 minutes to ask questions at the end, but I didn’t expect the lecture to exceed the scheduled time, plus there were many classroom interactions, and finally dragged the class for half an hour.

Later, I changed my strategy and expanded the content of the lesson preparation to twice the actual lecture content. For the same 2-hour course, I reserved at least 1 hour of questioning and questioning time, and then distributed some questions and answers into the main class, and the lectures also It is no longer necessary to cover everything, but to ask questions and determine the key points according to the needs of the scene. The course blocks are also relatively free, and even if there is an accident, there is still room for turning around

It is also because I have more preparations, so I can expand the course content at will, so that my courses have different versions, and I can end the get out of class as expected every time, and I can also make the students gain a lot and get good reviews.

How does the “50% buffer strategy” deduce in life?

Everything can be prepared, there is no job in this world that is completely suitable for you, only the job you can do.

What does it mean to be competent? It means that your ability is above the requirements of the job, and it is best to have a 50% surplus. You can complete the tasks within your job responsibilities, and you can also come up with solutions in time when unexpected situations occur. Cope with ease.

This is why I am advocating the practical application of “solving the problem”:

1) Put yourself in the lab and solve the puzzle, which is preparing, rehearsing, exercising, stress testing… 2) Then solving the puzzle in the real world.

Where there is a smooth sailing life, it is the result of everything. Where is the time that is always right? It was all forced and aggressive.

Most of the articles I write begin before the cards are ready. First, I write a first version based on the existing cards and send them out. Later, if you are still interested in this topic, I will add and improve them. The article you are reading now, in addition to the nearly 5,000 words of card information accumulated before, started to write, deleted almost 4,000 words, and then re-searched the Internet, re-read the key points of the two books, and then added cards.

My product shelves are full of semi-finished products that are 80% complete, because they were written when I wasn’t fully prepared – how can there be a moment in life when I’m fully prepared? Do what you should do well, and then move steadily, step by step, and don’t back down.

Growth doesn’t come every birthday, and goals don’t come automatically on December 31st each year. You’ll keep preparing until that sudden but unforeseen opportunity arises. ∎

PS The following is my understanding and practice of practicing the list .

This article is reprinted from: http://www.cnfeat.com/2022/11/07/NoOnTime/
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