Yes, I think that sounds fair. How do we effectively test the question?
I’m starting to realize that I don’t do this for the same reason others do. I don’t really set the clock ahead to be on time, nor to more on time than I would be otherwise. But I understand that that might be more aggravating to others than if I had some concrete goal in mind.
I’m sorry–I’m not trying to be thick–but, I don’t understand what you mean..?
I suspect you are right that some people are trying to address a perceived short-coming, but I never used it as a way of being more on time; just as a way of changing gears more smoothly.
Maybe a bit like telling the kids bedtime is in five minutes rather than just saying: “Go to bed.”
I’ve never worn a watch and I doubt that there are any two time-keeping devices in my house that are set for the same time.
I habitually take a book with me to appointments because it’s easier to sit and read rather than to try to figure out the formula for determining what fashionably late means in a given scenario.
I tend to think in terms of the passage of time rather than the “correct” time.
I recognize that this is IMHO and not in-my-stream-of-conciousness-self-revelations, but I wonder if being meticulous about time isn’t a bit like being meticulous about cleaning or dressing.
For one person, it has to be just so. For another, it’s ok either way.
Hooo, Boy. There have been a number of threads between people that are punctual/on time, and those that are often late to meetings/meet ups whatever. To say the devide between the two groups is huge would be the understatement of the year. I’ll leave it at that.
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I suspect you are right that some people are trying to address a perceived short-coming, but I never used it as a way of being more on time; just as a way of changing gears more smoothly.
Maybe a bit like telling the kids bedtime is in five minutes rather than just saying: “Go to bed.”
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:shrug: really don’t see how that analogy works. It’s just incredibly hard for me to conceive how inaccurate information (time) could possibly make things go smother.
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I habitually take a book with me to appointments because it’s easier to sit and read rather than to try to figure out the formula for determining what fashionably late means in a given scenario.
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Fashionably late to a party is a whole different can o beans than appointments. In my book, there is no such thing as being fashionably late to an appointment.
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I recognize that this is IMHO and not in-my-stream-of-conciousness-self-revelations, but I wonder if being meticulous about time isn’t a bit like being meticulous about cleaning or dressing.
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Speaking for myself, not at all. It’s probably more of a geek non geek thing.
That seems like wanting to have your cake and eat it - there’s a problem, so you put a control measure in place, but still get to use the problem as an excuse if the control measure doesn’t work, possibly at the same time as not admitting that the control measure is worthless.
It’s not even a hard problem - I can explain why I found it too difficult to learn programming in some languages, or where I get lost when someone tries to walk me through differential calculus, but arranging to be punctual is like… subtraction (which I know the clock-setters already get, because that’s what the clock-setting thing is fundamentally doing)
That’s not what I’m saying. I’m saying that you have to define your control group carefully to make sure that you’re measuring the right thing. The people who use it (not me, by the way, my clocks are set exactly right) say it works for them and don’t see any reason to doubt their experience. They could be self-deluded, but it’s not a big enough issue with me to care. If you want to measure the effect IMO you would need to find a large group of people who are habitually late and have half set their clocks ahead. Then you can measure the effectiveness of the technique.
For you. For others it certainly is. I know some people with ADHD who use tricks like this to cope and as I said, it seems to work for them. They are more on time and less likely to be rushing around then before they started using this and other techniques.
Again, I don’t understand your insistence that this is a bad thing to do. It seems to me to be on par with objecting that some people use 24 hour clocks instead of 12 hours here in the US where 12-hour is the standard. Yes, it’ll be confusing for people who glance at the clock and don’t know, but that’s really not a big issue. Scientific studies to show that setting your clocks ahead helps some people would be nice, but IMO unnecessary for something of this nature.
The only clock that I set fast is my bedside alarm clock. It goes off ten minutes to six, and then my cell phone alarm goes off at six. So, it’s really just an early warning system for me, and I do this instead of hitting the snooze bar.
Not just for me. The evaluation of difficulty of problems can’t be completely arbitrary and subjective. My point, if I even have one is that I think the solution is more complex than the problem, so if the user can cope with the solution, the problem can’t be one of complexity.
We haven’t really defined the group of people we’re talking about - maybe that’s part of the problem in the thread.
I don’t think I am insisting that.
I can see what you’re trying to say, but I don’t think it’s quite comparable - this is deliberate injection of error.
I’m going to drop the subject now anyway - not because I want to win the argument by running away (which I don’t particularly feel I have done anyway), but because as is often the case here, the disagreement is pushing me to appear to occupy a position more extreme than is truly the case.
I hate it when one of my clocks is out (happens just after the DST change) and I have to constantly adjust my thinking about which clock is correct. I really can’t see the point of having a timepiece five or ten minutes fast because I’d just make the mental adjustment.
I set two alarms to get up if I’m on a morning shift. The mobile phone is the first to go off and I have an alarm clock on the other side of the room if the phone fails or if I sleep through. I’m always awake about two minutes before the first alarm.
I know; that analogy wasn’t great for this very reason. There’s a pretty significant difference between using a different notation and adding extra time on the clock.
I’m with you here, it’s not an issue that I really care deeply about. But I know some people who use it and they are important to me and that may be pushing my button. I think we’re cool to agree to disagree.
Not intentionally. My bedroom clock radio thinks it has to be 5 minutes fast. After every power outage, I reset it to the correct time, but after about a month it has gained 5 minutes. And then stops gaining. I have tried to reset to be 5 minutes slow initially, but it still keeps gaining until it is five minutes fast. And no, it is not receiving signals from satellites (or similar), it is a cheap clock radio and probably about 25 yrs old. This happens gradually and not all at once, about 1 minute per week.
I have just figured it is possessed and wants to be five minutes fast. occasionally, I reset it myself, usually around midnight, unplugging and replugging, because it is a pain in the neck to change the time. But since I am used to it being five minutes fast so I have basically given up on it.
maybe next time I will reset it so it is five minutes fast, and see if it still gains 5 minutes in the first month.
I do this, because I am neurotic about punctuality to the point of not going to an event at all if I am going to be late, and I live with my boyfriend who thinks that if a movie starts at 9:30pm, you leave the house at 9:30pm, and you can just look up the starting few minutes of the movie online at home after it’s over.
As you may imagine, this caused some stress earlier in our relationship before I stumbled upon this trick. I have set the clocks ahead 17 minutes, and he can never remember that. So now, when we’re going to a movie that starts at 9:30pm, he is happy because the clock says 9:30pm when we’re walking out the door, and I am happy because we have 17 minutes to make an 8-minute drive, park, and get our tickets. I am never anxious about being late, and he is never anxious about being early.
Me too. I have know idea why my wife likes to do this. She certainly has no problem with punctuality using any clocks. Right time or not.
I think she is changing a bit because of cell phones. :shrug: As a programmer/systems analyst, it drives me a bit batty when people put bad data into any system (unless for testing of course. See, there I go )
When I wake up, I usually turn on the weather channel and wait for the “Local On The Eights” segment.
I use the Weather Channel for the real time. It takes me approx. 10 min to go door to door from my house to the bus stop. So I get a five minute buffer. Of course, the bus system here is always +/- five minutes, so it always cuts it close. I usually make it.
Sometimes I wake during the night. I peek at the clock to see how much time I have left to sleep. Although I know the clock is set fast, I can figure it out after a second or two. But since I’m up already and heading to the bathroom, I can deal.
Why would that work better than not having to plan for extra time, because it’s already built into your clock? One takes thinking, the other doesn’t. Which one is less likely to go wrong?
A clock that is offset for one particular purpose is rendered less useful for other purposes.
Also, fixing the problem in this way would, I think, make the person less able to deal with timekeeping out in the world, where the option of offsetting the clock is not available.
It’s more complex because it means dealing with two systems instead of one.
And you can’t possibly condense the variety of different lead times you may need into one single offset, so ot doesn’t even remove the burden of planning as you suggest.
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