User:Blueskylake/sandbox/Chamberlin's Law of Wasted Time

Chamberlin's Law of Wasted Time 'What will waste the most time will happen".

Coined in 1998 by Doug Chamberlin as a corollary to Murphy's Law, the author observed that it was not always something going wrong that affected outcome as what would waste the most time taking place. While similar to Murphy's law, this law is an observation of projects and activities where things such as politics happened that were not "wrong" but did waste time. The law is also related to Hofstadter's law which states that "everything takes longer than you expect" but unlike Hofstadters law, the law of wasted time affects time around the task or project expected time. This law has more hope than either of the above laws as you can plan to waste specific time to avoid wasting other time you don't want wasted. For example, wasting time making a backup of data will prevent the wasted time of recovering that data (unless more time can be wasted by having a bad backup). Also, taking the time to document something will prevent the wasted time of needing to re-learn the task later. Wasting time to recheck something an extra time will also tend to divert the future wasted time

Earliest available reference is in an email on May 12, 2012 between co-workers where the law which had been verbal until this time was referenced.

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