36. Time Is Relative

IF PEOPLE FEEL PRESSED FOR TIME, THEY WON’T STOP TO HELP SOMEONE Low Hurry: “It’ll be a few minutes before they’re ready for you, but you might as well head on over. If you have to wait over there, it shouldn’t be long.” Intermediate Hurry: “The assistant is ready for you, so please go right over.” High Hurry: “Oh, you’re late. They were expecting you a few minutes ago. You’d better get moving. The assistant should be waiting for you so you’d better hurry. It should only take a minute.” EXPECTATIONS CHANGE OVER TIMEThink about 56k modems vs cable. Overtime we see the difference between the two. But our expectations are always built higher whenever we get used to something.

Takeaways Always provide progress indicators so people know how much time something is going to take. If possible, make the amount of time it takes to do a task or bring up information con- sistent, so people can adjust their expectations accordingly. To make a process seem shorter, break it up into steps and have people think less. It’s mental processing that makes something seem to take a long time.