Time Optimism Bias

Learn How to Respond to “No Problem—That Won’t Take Long at All!”

Yellows are optimists regarding time; that’s just the way it is. Sure, your work can be done quickly, but rarely as quickly as a Yellow thinks. This has to do with the fact that he simply can’t plan or structure his life. I’ve personally worked with people who legitimately believed that they could manage eight meetings per day, who thought that it only took two days to renovate an entire kitchen and that it is possible to walk across Manhattan in twenty minutes.

These are typical manifestations of a Yellow’s optimism. The problem is obvious. It’s impossible to accomplish everything a Yellow wants to do, particularly because he doesn’t even know how long anything takes. And even if he does ask someone how long it takes, he doesn’t listen to what the person says, because what he’s saying is wrong. After all, the Yellow believes he probably knows best.

The other problem is that he won’t get into gear when he should. Do you know anyone who has taken a day off to paint the bedroom and at three o’clock in the afternoon, hasn’t opened the can of paint yet? “I’ll just do this first, then call so and so, then pop out for a bit, then…” Sometimes I wonder if the people who schedule the subways are all Yellow. There’s nothing nasty in this; it’s just about a total inability to have a realistic sense of time. And a genuine belief that this commodity is inexhaustible.

I remember a dinner I went to with a few Yellow friends. The pub had a policy of ninety-minute reservations, which meant that if you got there twenty-five minutes late there wouldn’t be time for an appetizer or for dessert because the kitchen couldn’t manage it in time. My partner and I arrived fifteen minutes early—we both have some splashes of Blue in our profiles. We went to the table and sat down to wait for the others. Time passed. Forty minutes later, twenty-five minutes late, they arrived, joyfully joking about how they had forgotten the time. We managed to order just a main course, eat it, and quickly pay for it before the next guest wanted his table. The strange thing was that when we spoke about the incident afterwards, their recollection was that they were just a few minutes late. They had simply repressed the fact that they missed 30 percent of the dinner.

Conclusion

Coordinate all appointments properly with Yellows. Synchronize your watches. Explain very clearly that the plane takes off at 8:00 P.M. and that if he doesn’t show up by then he’ll be left standing at the gate. Say it like it is: If he’s not in his car outside your door two hours before the plane takes off, you’ll drop down dead of a heart attack. Tell the Yellow that you will be deeply irritated with him and that your friendship could be damaged due to his continual slipups.

If the dinner is due to start at 7:00 P.M., invite everyone for that time, but make it 6:30 for your Yellow friends. They’ll arrive last anyway. They’ll come with very well-worded excuses. Be prepared for very colorful stories. But also know that Yellows will emphatically deny that they are optimists regarding time. They’ll insist that they most certainly kept an eye on the clock. It was just that something happened on the way.