My commute is one New Yorker article long.
My escalator ride is two emails long.
I can read 23 tweets in the line at the supermarket.
What new units of time have you discovered recently?
(This was originally sent to people who get my newsletter, which is sent sporadically and is very, very short. Want to subscribe?)
Something interesting: many people think in terms of podcasts as a unit of time. (How could we surface audio by length of time?)
More Units of Time
From Michael: “Laundry (putting in washer and later folding) takes me one episode of Congressional Dish (less than an hour, not counting pledge drives)!”
From Aofunne: “My walk to work is 4 songs long. My download of Game of thrones is one Silicon Valley episode long.”
From Matthew: “Doing the dishes takes one “This American Life” act.”
From Rhonda: “I can listen to almost 2 songs while “running” half a mile on the elliptical at the gym. I tell myself, just one more song and you’re done! It helps ease the torture.”
From Donna: “A friend of mine’s parents used to measure things in terms of “Fraggle Rocks” (25 minutes). “You need to work on your book report for 2 more Fraggle Rocks before you can play those video games”.”
From TJ: “A busy work day is half a podcast. A regular workday is 2. A day exploring the Smithsonian is 4 or 5.”
From Amy: “My commute to/from work is one podcast plus time to digest it.”
From Benjamin: “My commute to work is about two and a half Game of Thrones chapters long. Or one Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me. Or nearly two Reply All episodes. What I’m saying is my commute is looooong.”
From Freek: “my bike ride from my home in rotterdam to the train station is exactly one edm song long.”
From Ian: “The time it takes to unload the dishwasher is almost exactly the length of one NPR Morning Edition News Bulletin. I use the NPR One iOS app to play it on demand.” r From Alex: “My Saturday morning runs are three Fresh Air podcasts at 1.5 speed.”
From Angela: “I always tell people my house is a three-song walk away from Lake Michigan. (Unless one song is Jungleland. Then it would be two songs.)”
From Sebastian: “My commute to my job is exactly a chapter of Radio Ambulante´s podcast. It´s like it has been made for montevidean drivers who drive from my neighbourhood to the job.”
From Ruthann: “I still remember a roommate in the 1970s who measured distance in terms of units of beer. “That sales call is a six-pack away.”
From anonymous: “my commute is one “agonizing inner debate about whether i’m taking the job offer i got”
From Benjamin: “My daily walk to Starbucks is almost exactly one play of Taylor Swift’s “Hey Stephen.””
From Kate: “I used to think of the plane ride from Mke To Bos or Dca as one Nora Roberts. ;-)”
From Gavin: “I can do one French lesson on the free app DuoLingo in the time it takes to walk from the parking garage to the office door.”
From Erie: “The metro ride home from the airport is one good cry (and evidence of the cry disappearing) long”
From Cait: “Approximately three songs to each mile of my run. And the opposite, I don’t take metro often but when I do, I let my brain be “bored” instead of plugged in to my phone. It’s now a contest of how many stops I can go without looking at my phone.”
From Angie: “…my previous commute was about two rows of a knitting project. Now I walk, so instead I play frogger on the parkway (even if I have the right of way!).”
From Gabe: “I’ve always used music as a unit of time. When I started to go running, I would run for the length of one full album (~45 minutes, give or take), which would both help me pace myself and be able to give an album a deep listen.”
From Josh: “My dog walk around the block is one short podcast long. Sometimes I walk around twice and listen to a longer podcast.”
From Topher: “A motorcycle ride home empties 10 hours of work problems from my mind.”
From ML: “My bus trip to NYC was four Serial podcasts.”
From anonymous: “The talk show I work for is approximately three email newsletters long.”
From Ben: “My walk to the post office to pick up mail lasts about as long as a good phone conversation with my grandparents. It’s a nice length of time.”
From Bill: “I can get through at least two chapters of a Young Adult novel during a Red Line commute to work.”
From Benji: “I measure my life with podcasts. It takes one usual episode of The Finish Line podcast from WBUR to make & drink my morning coffee.”
From Elise: “When my brother was young we used to measure car rides in terms of SpongeBob episodes.”
From Joy: “My husband watches one episode of Breaking Bad per treadmill run.”
From Brandi: “My mom watches five videos via Facebook per cup of coffee. Videos = mix of hard news + dogs dressed as Elvis.”
From Sara: “My cross-country drive was 4 audiobooks, 1 full go-around w/ Serial & Taylor Swift’s 1989 approx. 19.89 times.”
From Renee: “my commute to and from school is about 3 data science podcast episodes”
From Eric: “Weird to only now realize via @mkramer’s tiny letter that I internalize all commuting times in units of podcasts.”
From Annie: “Yoga session in time takes load of bath towels to dry in LG dryer.”
From Samantha: “if the weather is good, I can read on my walk to work. I live about 5 to 10 pages from work.”