Quite often, I feel the pressure of time. I think to myself what many of us do: I need more time in order to get everything done. The only problem with that is that I know that even if I somehow had more time in which to get things done, that I would still yearn for more. One thing that has really helped me to figure out how to make the most of the time I have is to think about the two basic ways you can compress data: “lossless” and “lossy”.
The two types of compression.
Lossless compression is used when it is absolutely vital that everything gets restored to the way it was when it is decompressed. You see this for zip files and so forth. There’s no point compressing a program file if pieces of code are going to be missing as soon as it reaches a destination.
Lossy compressions, however, are far more interesting. They will remove that which is not needed and compress the rest using the same techniques that lossless compression uses. Think “packing light”.
This is most often used for media. Digital media is (almost) universally in a lossy compression format, the most famous of which is the mp3.
MP3s are wonderful: They can store in about one megabyte per minute what on a CD takes about 10 megabytes per minute. Not too shabby. However, being a lossy compression does have its drawbacks. A keen or trained ear can tell the sound difference, especially if the level of compression is too high.
How does this apply?
I have two questions for you:
- What in your span of time can be compressed?
- Do you use lossy or lossless compression?
This can be applied to just about any stretch of time, but let’s use a day for example. Say that you have to organize your desk, do the laundry, and prepare a presentation for work. Let’s go over the two ways you can try to compress this:
You can go with the lossless school of thought, and try to run them all at once. Start a load of laundry, then dash back to the desk, and work on the presentation and clean the desk at the same time. While arranging for things to happen simultaneously can be quite useful if done right, multitasking is known to kill people on the road and produce shoddy work the rest of the time.
That leaves us with the lossy compression. Start a load of laundry, and clear the desk. That will make working on your presentation more efficient. Once that is done, look at what needs doing in your presentation. Look for areas where you can shave time without seriously shaving quality. Do you really need to spend another hour researching that topic, or do you already have a grasp of it.? Having decided what to lose, plow forward and do just what needs to be done.
How much do you lose?
That depends on the situation. In the example above, the presentation seems to have been underway and just needed finishing. Many on the internet are talking about the famous (infamous?) 80/20 rule. It’s almost a cliche at this point, but like many cliches, it’s got a good reason.
The basics of this idea are that 80% of the value is to be found in 20% of the space and vice-versa. This applies to actions, money allocation, you name it. So, trying to “compress” your tasks, try to think how you can compress 80% of the value into 20% of the space. Therefore, back when the presentation was being started, we should have asked ourselves: What actions fall into the (about) 20% which actually serve, and which ones are part of the (about) 80% which take up time and energy and don’t actually serve? I know that if I were in school, I’d be pleased as punch if I could figure a way to spend about a quarter of the effort on an assignment and get a B or B-plus. (I actually did, once. I decided to skim the book we had for a reading assignment, and constructed my own version of the “cliffs notes”. Didn’t have to slog through the book, and got a respectable grade on the test.)
What experiences have you had with compression? Please share them in the comments!
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