Photo credit to Anh Nguyen
Time is something that everyone can value. It's a finite resource for everyone and so we value it more.
If I told you that I gave a starving family 1000€ yesterday, you'd probably think "yeah, good for you" or maybe even "do you want a medal for that?" However, if I told you that I spent seven hours at the food bank yesterday helping those in need, you'd probably think "that's nice" or "how nice, I should do more."
Everyone has an equal amount of time, so we can easily know how valuable time is.
However nice it is to think about the thought of equal time, reality is a bit different. In reality, we don't all have an equal amount of time to spend. In different parts of the world, the same tasks can take vastly different amounts of time.
For example, if we wanted to get water in Estonia, we might just have to walk to the kitchen, get a cup and get some water from the tap. However, if someone in the less developed parts of Africa wants to get some water, they might have to walk several kilometres on foot there and back.
Time is not a globally equal resource.
However, in our social circles, it is a fairly equal resource. We can compare our time to our colleagues and with a little more thinking, we can also compare accurately to someone more or less fortunate as us. This is something to keep in mind when making suggestions to other people - do they actually have the time to implement your suggestion?
Designing systems
We must also think about time when we try to design systems. Is it better to iterate multiple times or try to predict what will work once? The second has a lot of guesswork involved, so sometimes it is actually much better to take the more agile angle and start experimenting and iterating before actually thinking about every detail.
I will try to implement the iteration approach when I attempt to get the citizen course, a course which teaches the skills needed in everyday life, off the ground as a project at my school. I hope that this iteration method proves to be more successful than a long process involving a lot of guesswork.
Conclusion
This topic has been on my mind for a while, so I apologize if this is just a random mash of words. I think that it's important to think about how we can speed up the development of systems which can improve the quality of life of people.
Call to Action
Have you seen the difference in value for different people? If so, where have you seen it and why is there a difference? Let me know by replying to this post, I'd love to hear your thoughts.