Volume 2 · The Discipline of Hours · Essay 270
Timing Heuristics
Timing Heuristics is a lens. Nothing in the world changes when you pick it up, but quite a lot becomes visible.
What this concept offers is a pause — one extra beat between what happens and what you do about it. Civilisation, someone said, is measured in that beat.
The idea is simple, and like most simple ideas it is easy to nod at and hard to use. The nod is free. The use costs attention, every day, in small change.
Think of the student the night before the board exam, and the same student the morning after results. One believes time is an enemy; the other discovers it was only a mirror.
Time is the one currency the Reserve Bank does not print more of. The name is new; the wisdom stood at bus stops long before either of us.