"I'll be down in a minute"

The habit doesn't only operate on appointments. It runs all day, in the small promises about time you make to the people you live with, and I think this is where it does its quietest damage. Everything in this chapter is my own observation.

"I'll be down in a minute." "Five minutes and I'm ready." "I'll be home by six." "Dinner's at seven." "I'll just finish this and then we'll go." Each of these is an estimate, delivered as a promise, to someone who's waiting on it. And each is made the same way as the fifteen-minute walk. You picture the thing going well, you read the number off the picture, and you say it out loud.

The person on the other end is your partner in the car with the engine running, or a child by the door in a coat, or a friend who's arranged their evening around your six o'clock. They take the number seriously, because you said it. Then it passes, and they're waiting, and they've no idea whether it's now one more minute or twenty, because you don't know either. If they ask, they get the number again, "Two minutes," in a tone that suggests they're the one being unreasonable.

Over time they learn to translate. Five minutes means fifteen. "Home by six" means half past. "I'll just finish this" means start something else. This translation is a kind of intelligence about you that they've had to develop, and it isn't a fond one. It means that when you say a time, they don't hear a time. They hear a mood. That's a strange thing to have taught someone who loves you.

Children learn the translation early and are less polite about it. "You always say a minute." They're right, and they've learned something about promises from it, which is that the ones about time don't count. I'd rather they learned the opposite, and the only way to teach it is to say a number you can keep.

The remedy is the same as for the walk, only smaller. Say the real number. If it's going to be ten minutes, say ten, and let them decide what to do with the information. "Ten minutes" lets a partner make a cup of tea. "A minute" leaves them standing in the hall. If you don't know, say that. "I don't know how long this'll take. Go on without me and I'll come when it's done." That sounds worse and is much better, because it can be relied on.

And notice how often the small promise comes with the last thing attached. "I'll just finish this" is the last thing in its purest form, and it has the same best-case estimate inside it as every other last thing. The people at home have been living with the last thing for years. They're the ones who know most about the habit, and the ones who'd notice first if it changed.