Wanted: Your Stories About Maximizing Efficiency

I recently asked readers for their stories about precision. Now I want to hear about your rituals designed to minimize wasted effort. Plus still more stick figures in peril!

Note: This post is not paywalled and is thus available to all. Enjoy! — Paul

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Good morning! Remember how I recently asked Inconspicuous Consumption readers to send in their stories of striving for precision? Reader James Poisso posted a comment on that post, as follows:

I unlock my apartment while perfectly in stride, removing my keys from my pocket, selecting the correct key, and inserting it into the door so I can turn the key and open the door without stopping.

As I later explained to James, this strikes me as a ritual that’s more about efficiency, not precision — a subtle but real distinction.

Similarly, when readers began sending in their precision stories, Daniel Shank Cruz submitted this one:

When I was in college 20 years ago, I was about to microwave something and set the timer for 45 seconds. My friend Tim saw me and said, “You know, you should set it for 44 seconds instead of 45, because you'll save time by hitting the 4 twice instead of having to move over to the 5.”

So that's what I started doing, and I still do it today. This most frequently occurs when I microwave a mug of water for tea. If I’m not putting milk in it, I microwave it for 1:11, and if I am putting milk in, for 1:22. These non-round numbers, which would have bothered me at one time, now feel just right.

Again, this ritual (which I really, really love) feels more about efficiency, not precision. And I suspect that many of us strive even more for efficiency than we do for precision, whether it’s by mowing the lawn in a particular pattern, minimizing the number of trips made between the kitchen and the dining room, brushing your teeth while going to the bathroom (I actually know someone who did that), or whatever. It’s satisfying to know that you’re doing something with the least amount of wasted effort, right?

So I’m once again asking to hear from you folks: If you have an interesting efficiency ritual or habit, please email it to me. I’ll gather the best ones into a future IC post. If you prefer that I not use your name, that’s fine — just say so.

My hope — and, really, my expectation — is that we’ll get a lot of interesting stories and that we’ll all feel a bit better about knowing that other people share some of our behavioral quirks and tendencies.

Big thanks in advance, and doubleplusthanks to James Poisso and Daniel Shank Cruz for inadvertently providing the impetus for this one.

What’s Wrong with This Picture?

(Photo by Nate Rathjen)

The photo shown above was sent in by reader Jamie Rathjen, and taken by his brother Nate. “It's near L’Enfant Plaza in D.C., outside a parking garage,” says Jamie. Can you spot the inconspicuous detail?

Jamie explains:

[Until now,] I never noticed what was wrong with the sign on the right — namely, that it's almost 50 years out of date. It clearly dates from the ’70s because you can see “District of Columbia” in the I-95 shield, but I-95 hasn't entered D.C. since 1977, when the powers that be canned plans to build a bunch of interstates all over the city. At that point, I-95 in the city and to the southwest became I-395, but this sign was apparently never changed.

Whoa, that is some next-level noticing! Big thanks to the brothers Rathjen for this one.

Stick Figures in Peril, Continued

(Photo by Peter Hymas)

My recent post about stick figures in peril continues to inspire reader submissions. The latest ones come from Peter Hymas, including the sign shown above, which Peter saw on a Sweepmaster 300 street sweeper in Durham, North Carolina. (I considered just saying he saw it “on a street sweeper,” but somehow the “Sweepmaster 300” model name seems important there, no?)

Peter also sent along this one, which he saw in Athens, Georgia:

(Photo by Peter Hymas)

Although the sign’s message seems straightforward enough, Peter had a novel interpretation of it:

As someone who’s spent a lifetime on bicycles, my take is that with a decent amount of speed you can jump the steps and just keep on riding. So maybe this stick figure isn’t really in peril.

As a daily cyclist myself, I think I’d treat the sign as a warning, not as a dare. But hey, it takes all types!

Finally, there’s this one, which reader Josh Munn spotted at Hamlin Beach State Park, near Rochester, New York:

(Photo by Josh Munn)

The speed lines really make that one!

Paul Lukas has been obsessing over the inconspicuous for most of his life, and has been writing about those obsessions for more than 30 years. You can contact him here.