Conservation of Effort A.K.A. The Sloth is the Mother of Invention
Being lazy is a good thing. I know that goes against everything you were likely taught since kindergarten but, in the interest of science, let’s assume that everything you know is wrong. Question everything! That is the way of the geek. Actually, if you go back to the original definition, the way of the geek would be to eat anything and everything in sight but the usage has changed in recent years.
Sorry, I’m rambling a bit. Too much soda and donut holes this morning.
If you’re lazy, you typically look for the easiest/fastest/most efficient methods to accomplish the things you have to do. As long as the final quality doesn’t suffer, is that a bad thing?
Take the gun range, for example. At the range, you can relax, right? You have plenty of time to line up your shot, reload your gun, analyze your performance and stare at your gun when you miss like it’s the gun’s fault. Question: do you have the luxury of that time when some ne’er do well is kicking in your front door?
It’s time to get lazy. You don’t want to expend any more effort than you absolutely have to. The official term is “conservation of effort” or doing the most amount of work in the least amount of time with as little effort as possible.
Let take a hypothetical situation in a practice (that totally isn’t how I ever did something. Ever. **cough**): reloading practice. The way I started…I mean the way this hypothetical person started was to not realize right away that the gun was out of ammo, then fumble around for the magazine release button. Then he would catch the magazine with his left hand so that he didn’t have to chase it down later and set it down on the table. He would then reach into his pocket and pull out the new magazine. Look at the magazine to see which way it was facing and then fumble around to orient the magazine correction. Then he would look at the gun and insert the magazine and then push on the bottom of it a couple of times to make sure it was seated. The final step was to spend a lot of time trying to push that tiny release slide release button on the Glock pistol while muttering to himself about how he needs to get one of those aftermarket slide release extensions because this is just ridiculous. I mean really, the thing is nearly flush mount. How the heck is anyone supposed to use that darn thing. Every other manufacturer seems to recognize that you need a surface that sticks out more than a millimeter or two in order to be useful. Who in their right mind would design something like….oh..uhm…got a bit off track there again. Sorry.
A quick glance tells me there are eleven steps there. Is there room for improvement? You bet your box of donut holes there is.
First off, as you shoot more and more, you get a feel for when you’re out of ammo and your slide locks back. Pay attention to that. Eventually, you don’t even have to look at the gun. You’ll feel that shot and your brain will say “slide locked”. Secondly, take time to practice hitting that magazine release button. There shouldn’t be any fumbling at all. If you just can’t reach it without fumbling, you might look into a gun that’s more suited to the ergonomics of your hand. That’s not to say there shouldn’t be a slight adjustment of the grip, mind you. Sometimes you just have to reach a bit. What I mean is if it’s taking two hands to hit that button, it’s not right for your hands.
Those are just time savers, though, let’s look into reducing steps.
The big thing where you can save a lot of effort and thus time is the magazine itself. Invest in a magazine holster. This will keep the magazine in the same place and in the same orientation each time. Typically, for a magazine holster kept on the belt on the left hand side, you want the bullets facing forward. If you were to reach down with your left hand…wait…I forgot to mention everything here is assuming you’re right handed. If you’re left handed, just swap the directions. Anyway, with the bullets pointing forward, it will take advantage of the body’s natural ergonomics and the magazine will be oriented correctly by the time you get it to the gun.
Secondly, just drop the magazine on the floor. Seriously, it’s ok. You’re not going to hurt its feelings. The magazine won’t be sitting there saying “he abandoned me!” but will instead say “I’m glad I was able to provide him the ammunition he needed and I hope my brothers will continue to supply him ammo in his time of need.”**
Third, combine your motions. Instead of doing a Step 1, Step 2, etc type of process, do steps at the same time. This will save you a surprising of time during a maneuver and make things flow so much smoother.
Finally, instead of fumbling with that dang button which, in my opinion can too easily lead to your finger slipping off, just rack the slide. Pull the slide back and let it go then get your hand on the gun’s grip again.
So let’s look at how this process should be done and see if we saved any effort…
Slide locks back because you’re out of ammo. While your right hand pushes the magazine release your left hand reaches down for the magazine in the holster (two motions at the same time count as one step!). As you pull out the magazine, your left finger indexes the ammo so you know it’s in the right orientation. Because everything is essentially lined up already, the magazine slides right into the magwell of the gun. Don’t just slide it in, though, use a good amount of force. Finally, the left hand reaches up, racks the slide and then moves to position to resume firing.
I don’t know about you but it seems to me we cut the number of steps in half there. Partly due to practice and partly due to reducing the amount of movement we have to make. That’s a win for laziness in my book.
It doesn’t have to stop there. Look at every process you do. Is there any way you can reduce the steps when reloading your AR? How about your shotgun? Not just shooting either. Is there a way to efficiently clean your room? How about an easier way to do your bookkeeping?
Think of it this way: time is money. Assign an hourly rate to your life. Say that you determine that your time is worth $30 an hour. If it normally takes you 2 hours to mow the lawn, you’ve just spent $60. Let’s say you can figure out a way to do it in one hour? Well, there’s $30 you’ve saved. What if your kid or the neighbor’s kid will do it for $10? Hmm…
If you don’t want to do the monetary value thing, let’s just look at time itself. If you were to find a way to save 10 minutes of time per day doing something. With an average lifespan of 75 years, those 10 minutes a day will save around 192 days. That’s half a year added on to your life. More time saved equals more time added on to your lifespan.
Look at that, we here at Gun Noob just showed you how to live longer.
**The anthropomorphism of the magazines was meant to illustrate a point. If your magazines are, in fact, talking to you then please see your doctor at your nearest possible convenience.
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