Improvement by Delay

nobody@vox.com(Phil) — Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:23:48 -0800

Here is a fascinating little article on the subject of "lazy evaluation." The idea is that you improve a process by delaying certain time-intensive steps until they are determined to be absolutely necessary. Sometimes, in life, we spend far too much time on time-intensive stuff that later proves to be superfluous. Nari Kannan, referencing this Wikipedia entry, writes:

...it pays to think about delaying certain process steps or avoiding them altogether, This may effect an impressive degree of process improvement.

Since knowing God's will is such a huge challenge for most believers, what can we learn from "lazy evaluation" in terms of improving our life processes? Here are a few thoughts:

Sometimes you gain by waiting, especially when it comes to the temptation to act on hearsay or "the most current" information. (How many emails would never have been sent if we simply waited a week?)
Procrastination is often simply doing something that takes a lot of time that wouldn't be necessary if you had "procrastinated" on the bad stuff, waiting till later--in many cases, never.
Speaking of procrastinating the bad stuff, often, sin can be delayed by an hour or two. This is sometimes all the delay you need to never do it, which saves not only time, but guilt and grief and sorrow.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Coffee Culture Kingdom

Improvement by Delay