I set my alarm clock 15 minutes fast, and my watch 3 minutes fast. The former makes it less annoying to get out of bed; the latter keeps me from being late to meetings.
Yes, I do. Car only. I don’t remember why I started, but I like it.
Here’s why I don’t get it: those minutes exist for everyone alive. They are not extra ones created out of nothing by the act of setting the clock wrong.
I am under NO illusions that I’m somehow “gaining” time, it’s just a little psychological boost. That’s all it is. It just helps me feel better about the morning somehow. I’m not sure if the demographics matter to you, but just to help further satisfy your curiosity about we weird time setter aheaders :D, I’m a 52 year old woman, and I’ve been doing it since my 20s.
I hope that helps.
All the time pieces in my life are set ahead . . . way ahead . . . by 24 hours!
Ugh, that habit annoys me no end. It’s silly enough when people do it at home. But when a business or agency or something does it, and they close at say 5:00, and you get there at 4:54, and they’ve already locked up because their clocks say 5:01—it’s damned exasperating.
I’m a 52 year old woman, and I’ve been annoyed by it since my 20s.
It doesn’t make any sense, because you’re trying to trick your own mind into believing it’s later than it really is. But you already know full well you set it in advance on purpose. So, knowing that, you somehow have to divide your mind into compartments to make yourself forget that it isn’t the actual time. The whole concept of playing tricks on yourself like that, and what’s more blanking out part of your consciousness to deceive yourself, is just too weird for me. I mean, have some more respect for your own mind than that.
I understand the reasons people are stating for doing it. I’m deeply doubtful that it actually helps. It’s an additional variable, and it’s a fixed one, meaning:
-You have one more problem (working out what the time really is)
and
-It can only be useful for one particular category of timekeeping problem - so a five minute advance on your clock might help you get your ass on the sofa in time to watch TV (does anyone really have that problem), but that advance isn’t going to help you be in time for an appointment that has a half hour journey in front of it.
I guess I’m just surprised that what I expected would be an uncommon quirk is a bit more mainstream than I thought.
If I need to know the accurate-to-the-exact-minute time, I pull out my iPhone. Otherwise for many purposes, “almost 5:30” or “just after 9” is usually good enough. I have a small analog watch that is only marked off at 5-minute increments, anyway, so looking at the watch face can sometimes be a guess as to what an exact time might be.
For me, it works for being early to that meeting down the hall/across the building, and just fine for half-hour-away drives - because I know if something’s a half-hour drive, I should probably leave 45 minutes before the appointment time. My punctuality isn’t caused by having a slightly fast watch. It just makes me feel comfortable that my watch is not slow.
I think for us it might also be side effects of having grown up with analog wind-watches that might lose time, and not-punctual people as well.
Yes, but I think there is a fundamental difference between lack of precision and injected error. Not that it matters, and not that I’ll ever convince anyone they’re being daft, if that were even necessary.
I guess we probably all have irrational little habits. This one just surprised me in its popularity, is all.
I have a clock that loses time. I set it two minutes fast so that as it slowly loses time it is close +/- a few minutes.
Other than that, all my clocks are the same.
But you don’t necessarily HAVE the first problem. People who do this - particularly with small amounts of time, aren’t necessarily bothering to figure out what time it “really” is. I don’t even know how “off” my bedroom clock is - I’m missing the variable to do the math. There isn’t a lot of reason to know exactly - if you are three minutes early for your bus or your TV show you are fine. The problem is being two minutes late.
What I don’t get about time management is my brother in law - in fact, my husband’s entire family as far as I can tell - who never add travel time in. If they are supposed to be at my house at 3:00, they leave their homes at 3:00 - half an hour away. I’ve watched them plan days where they have events with 45 minute drives in between and are supposed to only stay an hour - and don’t plan the travel time. I suspect people who benefit from a watch five minutes fast have the kinder gentler version of this inability to understand that we don’t teleport places - and without the watch five minutes fast, missed a lot of buses.
Pretty much. I’ve been setting my watch 5-10 minutes ahead since high school, when I took the bus. The bus was always five minutes early, or five minutes late, or seventeen minutes late. You never knew. So it behooved me to be there early JUST IN CASE.
This isn’t a habit of chronically late people, good heavens. This is a habit of people who are not only punctual but prefer to be early. I don’t look at the clock and say “I’m five minutes ahead, I can linger and lounge around”. I look at the clock and go “I’m five minutes ahead, all right, I’m moving well, if I continue moving at this pace I definitely won’t be late.”
What I don’t understand is chronically late people who never make an effort to be on time! But then we won’t get into that discussion.
No, it’s a tool that some people use to plan properly and be punctual.
Yep. I rarely drive my wifes car, but when I do, if I look at her clock, I get to have that moment of panic too. “Shit, I’m going to be late”.
I really don’t get it. Not at all.
But that is one reason they set their clocks fast - that moment of panic that moves them.
My cell phone is precisely the right time.
My kitchen clock is exactly 57 minutes fast.
My bedroom clock is 15 minutes fast.
The clock in my car is 1 hour and 22 minutes fast.
I like living in many time zones.
<shrug> it seems overly complex. The easiest way to be on time or early is to simply start with sufficient lead time in your plan.
Our clocks are 3 minutes fast for pretty much this reason. I have a very particular train that I like to catch every single morning because it is completely empty so I always get a seat. It comes sometime between 7:57 a.m. and 8:04 a.m. every day. There is nothing more frustrating in this world than walking into the train station at 7:58 to see the doors closing on an empty train and knowing that every other train that comes for the rest of the morning is going to be packed full of people and I’m going to have to stand uncomfortably squished between strangers for the next 25 minutes. Putting my clocks 3 minutes ahead helps me make sure I am in the train station at 7:57 on the dot. The fact that it annoys other people is just a bonus. 
I used to, but seriously the math was a pain in the ass, and there was literally no benefit. I need to be out of the door at x, which means I need to get up at x-45, which means the clock needs to be set to x-45±?? For me, time and math do not mix well, especially when its time to set the alarm for a butt-crack of dawn flight.
I am not very good at re-setting clocks that get ahead by themselves, until it becomes ridiculous. The clock I had in my library got about 30 minutes ahead before it was time to adjust for daylight savings time, and I just let it. I’m pretty sure the bathroom is still about 5 minutes fast, but the clock itself seems to like that just fine, and I don’t care enough to bother.
But it isn’t. Once I set it, it’s set forever. It’s not complex at all, and I never have the “moment of panic” other people are referring to.