Where, exactly, did the time go?

I attended a talk at the Kingston IET last night. I had a front row seat in a shed packed with aging engineers in the garden of the Lion Pub, Wicks Road, Kingston. Well, we're all heading in the same direction at about the same rate so I guess we're all aging something or others.

I was there to push the buttons on a Keynote presentation I had prepared to illustrate the talk given by Ray Piggott, the guest speaker that evening.

One of the themes that came out of Ray's talk was the obsessive nature of engineers - left to their own devices, he argued, they would typically engineer a product to a point well beyond that which made any commercial sense. This in spite of the definition given by one of the attendees that "an engineer is someone who can design something to be produced for a shilling, that any fool could produce for half-a-crown and the Government would manufacture for 5 shillings". The currency denominations indicate something of the vintage of the sentiment.

I have a particular interest in the obsessive nature of engineers - my father was an engineer. And it came as startling news to me that the children of engineers display twice the propensity for autism when compared with the population as a whole. Autism is called a 'spectrum disorder' because it can appear in greatly varying degrees, often showing up early in life. Symptoms include: resistance to changes in routine, repetitive behavior, and obsessive interests. And looking back I can certainly see some evidence of obsessive behaviour. I remember the exasperation of my partner at the time when planning a ski trip many years ago. I had decided to put all the possible variables of every European ski resort into a spreadsheet in order to calculate the best place for us to ski. Price, obviously, but just as importantly the ratio of black, red and blue runs... the number and length of the runs... the travelling time between airport and resort... purpose built or traditional village... the list of variables went on and on. A mild case, to be sure.

More worrying for me now is the higher than average incidence of autism in the grandchildren of engineers. Certainly, if my son's obsession with Thomas the Tank Engine and the exact order in which Annie and Clarabel must be placed on the track is anything to go by, we may have a problem.

But it's nothing like the problem that Nicholas Felton has. His obsession is to track the way he spends his time in mind-boggling detail. The results are then turned into an annual report. Take a look at the 2007 Feltron Report as an example. In it he catalogues the vital statistics of his year: number of alchoholic beverages broken down by type... how much he listened to his ipod and what he listened to... how far he travelled and by what means of transport... the clothes he bought sorted by colour... food eaten by type... photos taken by location... and many more details of his year broken down into granular detail.

I can only think he comes from a very long line of engineers. Well worth a look.

The 2008 edition has yet to appear and given the amount of effort he puts into it, I'm not surprised. Possibly in recognition that it's hard work to put together, Nicholas has created a site to help other obsessives keep track of their own time. You'll find it at daytum.com