Minimum Time To Do Anything (MTTDA)

This week was parent-teacher conferences. My partner teacher Ross (based on his years of experience at High Tech High) suggested that we schedule two families every 15 minutes, switching off half way through. Something told me that I was going to have a hard time limiting each set of parents to just 7.5 minutes. After all, I have a lot more in common with these parents than most of my fellow teachers (not the least of which is actually having been the parent across the table). But I'm the new guy, what do I know? We started at 12:30 and by 4:00, I noticed that there were 6 sets of parents waiting in the hall and Ross's room was dark and locked. I'm coming to the conclusion that everyone has an intrinsic clock inside them that sets the minimum time it takes them to do anything. I conjecture it is a complex function of their attention span and their life experience. Ross's MTTDA (Minimum Time To Do Anything) apparently is no more than 7.5 minutes. After 20 conferences, it appears my MTTDA is in the 16.3 minute range. After 30 years of marriage, I can with some confidence estimate my wife's MTTDA is in the 5-10 minute range. She both starts and finishes things much faster than me. While I'm contemplating the 43 things that will get in my way, she is rounding the first turn. Now that I think about it, this could explain a lot.