How a car manufacturing idea can help you reclaim your time
By: Max De Rooij
Tags: Digital Ethic, Time Well Spent, Design, Values, UX

How a car manufacturing idea can help you reclaim your time

The Toyota factory is the much the same as any other. Large robotic factory lines carry big parts from A to B while car mechanics assemble the parts together in collaboration with the robot. Producing a new vehicle to be enjoyed somewhere in the world. However, there is something special about their production. It’s the way they look at faults within the process.

At the point something goes wrong, the idea is not to start fixing it right away. The goal is to find out what the root-cause is behind the fault. The method is to ask ‘why?’ enough times to arrive at the actual cause of the problem, not the superfluous cause that you notice at first hand. This looks somewhat like this, exampled derived from Wikipedia:

The vehicle will not start. (the problem)

1. Why? — The battery is dead. (First why)

2. Why? — The alternator is not functioning. (Second why)

3. Why? — The alternator belt has broken. (Third why)

4. Why? — The alternator belt was well beyond its useful service life and not replaced. (Fourth why)

5. Why? — The vehicle was not maintained according to the recommended service schedule. (Fifth why, a root cause)

Now this method might have already been familiar to you. But what I think it can help you with is reclaiming your time online. Think about the times you go to Youtube or Reddit, but find yourself watching videos that have no real value to you. You get out of the black hole after two hours and think: What on earth did I just do with my time?

I think the 5 why method can be applied to assess why you want to use a service like Youtube or Reddit anyway. All we need is a bit of friction when we land on a website. You need to be prevented to mindlessly fall into the black hole these services are at times. A plugin like ‘Are you Sure?’ by sgentle can help create this friction for you.

As soon as you land on the point of friction, apply the 5-why method:

I landed on Youtube. (the problem)

Why? — To watch instructions on piano playing. (First why)

2. Why? — I am looking for ideas on how to continue my practice. (Second why)

3. Why? — Why are you looking for ideas to practice. (Third why)

4. Why? — So I can play a song for a loved one.

In this case you only need to ask the question 4 times to arrive at your core value: Playing a piano song for a loved one. Now you can go past the friction barrier with a specific value in mind that you strive for. This in no way takes away the temptation to still go to your recommended videos or get distracted somewhere else within Youtube, but you took a moment to make yourself aware of why you are here ready to spend your valuable time anyway.

On the other hand, I know sometimes that mindless browsing can be relaxing and soothing as well, there is no need to come to Youtube or Reddit with a very specific goal 100% of the time. But being more aware of why you spend time somewhere might help you reclaim it.

Ideally we’d be able to let services like these know why we are there on a certain moment, and it would assist us in that value, but until we get there, there is value in reclaiming your time and supporting your values on your own.