Efficiency..

I was walking to the grocery store with my friend at work the other day, and we were being stupid and talking about random things (I seem to be involved in a lot of conversations that fit that description. It must be the company that I keep). Anyhow, we got onto the topic of this book called the Pragmatic Programmer, which is essentially a guide to being a better all-around software programmer. Most of the advice is geared in the general direction (rather than saying something specific to a particular coding language, etc.). I commented how a person was walking across the street weird, and Tony said he should read a book about walking, to which I quipped "Yes, the Pragmatic Pedestrian".

Okay, so far, I'm telling a boring story. The main purpose I chose to write about this is because it dawned on me that this is one of those subjects I would really be interested to read more about. Not walking specifically, though I definitely would be interested to see what would be written about that particular subject.

If you think about it, there's tons of ways in which you can make yourself more efficient on a daily basis. Most people don't think it's worth the effort, and I agree. But that doesn't mean that the subject matter itself is necessarily boring. I mean, if I have to make a big change in my life to improve my walking efficiency by twenty percent, I'm not going to bother, but if it's something as simple as "Avoid intersections that have buttons you must push in order to activate the Walk signal", I would probably make the change.

The thing is, everyone has these little rules in their head, or at least, I do, and hopefully I'm not clinically insane. A lot of these things are thoughts that may or may not have floated around in your head before, but until you've actually heard them articulated, they usually fly off into your subconscious, never to be thought of again.

On my way back home after work, I was trying to come up with a list of means in my head by which you actually could increase your efficiency. Okay, so I turned this from a boring story into a complete waste of your time. Suck it up, pansy.

Here's what I have so far (by no means an exhaustive list - pretty incomplete at this point).

• Walk in direct lines to the point that you are travelling, whenever possible.

This sounds obvious, but maybe it isn't. For example, when walking, I notice I have a tendency to follow the sidewalks, rather than cut through parking lots, leap over trucks, etc. By the way, I should mention that while these rules disregard certain safety factors like running across highways (disregarding that method of efficiency due to the fact that it also increases the efficiency of you dying), I'm assuming optimal walking conditions, and so things like getting mugged in a parking lot are not a concern.

• As mentioned earlier, avoid intersections that have buttons you must push to activate the pedestrian walk signal

I don't even know why these are required any more. I agree, when you're sitting at an intersection that has a flashing green light, it is necessary for you to notify the traffic light that there is a pedestrian waiting to cross. However, for busy intersections, where a crossing pedestrian can either be assumed, or ignored, when the flow of traffic is the same as that of the direction the pedestrian is walking in, these buttons are unnecessary. The reason avoiding these can increase your efficiency is that lights without this requirement will automatically put on the walk signal for you, giving you a better indication for how much time you have left before the light turns yellow and the direction of traffic changes.

Oh also, I've brought this up with a couple of people, and there seems to be some confusion here. I'm talking solely about traffic lights where the only difference that pushing the pedestrian button makes is that when the traffic lights turn green in the direction you're walking, the walk signal also activates. There are still lots of traffic lights in Victoria where neglecting to push this button simply means that the walk signal will not activate (though that is the only variable that changes - walking across is still perfectly safe)

• Look ahead for upcoming obstructions, and cross the street as soon as it is safe and possible to do so without slowing yourself down.

This is awesome, because I really do think these thoughts. I swear, I'm like a robot. Anyhow, sometimes when I walk up to the grocery store on my lunch break, I notice ahead that there is construction, or some other such obstacle that may slow down my overall walking speed. By noticing this in advance, I can cross the street whenever it is safe to do so (there is no longer oncoming traffic), and avoid the obstruction. I have friends that don't look very far ahead, and end up noticing the obstruction too late, then waiting at the obstruction to either pass by it, or to cross the street (at which point they must then stand waiting until there is a break in traffic).

• When at a traffic intersection, if you miss the opportunity to cross the street, but will need to cross twice (once in one direction, then again in the other direction), cross the other direction when the flow of traffic changes.

This one is super obvious, and I think everyone I know follows this rule. This basically applies when you need to be kitty-corner to the corner you are currently waiting on. No matter what, you are going to need to cross the street twice, so you might as well cross when given the opportunity as soon as the flow of traffic changes (which will be soon, given that the condition for this rule applying is that you missed your initial opportunity to cross the street).

I think that's enough for now. So... am I serious? I guess so. I'm not even sure why I compiled this list, other than the fact that I'm stuck inside tonight, bored, and unable to play squash, and the notion of increased efficiency is something I'm always intrigued by.

If we really wanted to, there are probably hundreds of ways in our life that we could increase our efficiency by small amounts. By doing so, we would be more productive on a daily basis. Think that's true? I don't. It's probably like owning a pair of electric scissors - at the end of your life, you've got three extra minutes saved up. I don't care though, I still find the notion interesting, and I like feeling efficient, which is probably one of the reasons that I enjoy (and am reasonably good at) programming software.

Anyone out there have other areas in which they think efficiency could be increased? Write a comment, I'd be interested to hear about them.