In the last fairly lengthy article we looked at inventing a system which took research and therefore time to create.  How about a system that we can invent and use with very little research or time.  Surprisingly, it is about time!

Those of you who are computer users… or indeed perhaps any kind of user or just someone with an inquiring mind have probably waited for something – or wondered how long something takes.  To provide for this need there is, at its base,  counting – and then things that were created to count in time like clocks,  watches and then down another level are stop watches, timers and then even more specific… egg timers, etc.  We then compare everything to seconds (or whatever).

But… these are physical systems.  How about mental systems – or ones where we use our brain (in the teachings of Nodism, the brain and thought is physical – but that stretches the current expectations of the word Physical).

So here is a system for timing things that you can use without a physical device.  Take ten seconds of a song and repeat it and count the repetitions.   It helps to have a chorus that is ten seconds long – most songs are around there – so it is not that hard.  This is not an exact count but it lets you get in the several minutes with +- 10 seconds.  This is perfect for me to count how long pages are taking to load for instance when doing preliminary usability or some impromptu market research (usually about as far as I get ;-)).

Oh darn – I guess this is not my invention!  I just remembered that Hudson Hawk movie – they timed things using whole songs (a bit different) during their burglaries.  That’s funny – I remember people calling it a musical.  Maybe they did not quite understand the system at play.

Inventing systems is important to free up more time – time to invent more – to free up more time…  so somebody can smell the flowers.