What the heap costs you

I've argued the mechanism. This chapter is the bill, and it's the one you've never seen in one place, because the heap sends it in instalments.

The money. Chapter 12 listed it. Auto-renewals at the wrong price, late fees, the expenses not claimed, the return window closed, the appointment charged for because you didn't cancel. Add up last year's honestly. It's a holiday.

The time. Not the four minutes per item, which you'd have spent anyway, but the time round the items. The fourth reminder that has to be read and felt bad about. The explanation to the school. The extra call because the first deadline went. The hunting for the document that would have been in your hand when the item arrived and is now somewhere in a drawer. An item done late costs its own time plus the time of being late, and the second is usually larger.

The carry. Masicampo and Baumeister's anagrams, done worse with an unfinished goal running. That's every piece of work you did last week, every conversation, every evening, with eleven items running in the background and taking a little from each. You don't notice it because it's always on. You'd notice it if it stopped, and chapter 22 is the day it does.

The health. Tice and Baumeister's students were sicker by the end of the term, and I'm not going to claim the form is making you ill, but the stress that comes with the heap is real, and it's a low continuous kind rather than a sharp one, and low continuous stress is the sort that doesn't get noticed until something else shows it up.

The people. The friend who asked about November and has heard nothing for nine days. The colleague waiting on the expenses sign-off. The school office chasing the form for the third time. The partner who does the admin because you don't, and has stopped mentioning it, which is worse than mentioning it. Each item in the heap has someone on the other end of it, and they've all been waiting, and they've all drawn a conclusion.

The evenings. Not because the heap takes your evening. Because it colours it. The envelope on the side is visible from the sofa, and the tabs are visible when you open the laptop to watch something, and the Sunday evening has the whole heap in it, unaddressed, and that's the feeling you've stopped noticing. It's the heap.