Ha - what a great quote!
I’ve got a draft newsletter that will ship in the next month or so on this issue. I’ve been making a list of things I want to do slower. We should not always solve for “fast”.
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The tech should work reliably by the time they are ready. 
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There is truth in that!
After reviewing this thread I think that is shorthand for this makes more sense or this is easier to me. It’s not the faster part that matters it’s that it eliminated things I’d rather not mess with so I have the time to think n the things that I consider more important. Of I can speed through 300 emails with a few clicks that are mostly for information but not immediately actionable then I am free to spend the hour on the one that has items I need to think on.
Actually that one I can give a plausible reason for. They take up far more room, and restrooms are always small. Putting the one that is double or more the size of the others in the back where it can take up the entire wall makes more sense.
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The phrasing I use for this is “scuffing” and “smoothing.”
You scuff (introduce friction to) things you don’t want to be quite as fast. If the president wants to launch nuclear missles, he has to get the guy next to him to open the briefcase. He has to call alphanumeric codes in. The guy on the other end confirms. There’s friction in the process, because we don’t accidentally want to nuke Europe.
You smooth (reduce friction for) things you want to be faster. If you just press the “start” button on our microwave, it fires up on full power for 30 seconds. You can tap it up to 10 times, for a total of 5 minutes. That’s a significant improvement over old microwaves where you had to press a button to start the process, key in the power, key in your time, and then press the “start” button.
Some things should be scuffed. Others should be smoothed. It’s not about “whether,” but “which.”
But even if it doesn’t, the futzing with it will ALSO be considered “normal.”
Several years ago, my dad asked me once how to defragment his computer, because he couldn’t find the program to do it. It was basically an ingrained procedure. I had to explain to him that with modern computers it wasn’t necessary.
The “futzing” was just accepted as part of the process, to the point where it somewhat distressed him when he couldn’t figure out how to do the necessary futzing.
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This is one reason why I keep using Omnifocus.
I have used and very much like Noteplan, Things, Reminders, 2Do, Taskpaper, etc. All very good at what they do.
However they’re all a bit easier for me to use than OmniFocus. I find, over time, that I’m more likely to blow off my tasks, or easily move things around, or just not clean up everything. The extra steps it takes to keep OmniFocus useful creates just the right amount of friction that I think through the tasks/projects more than I do using other apps.
This is, of course, highly highly subjective. The sweet spot for me could be a huge source of frustration and distraction for anyone else. Or just flat-out time wasting.
On the opposite side, if I need to write or mindmap anything I want those as frictionless as possible. For example, I stick with MindNode instead of other, more feature rich mindmap programs because that’s exactly the spot I don’t want to have any friction at all.
I really don’t want to think about the amount of time and software switching it has taken me to get to this sweet spot. It’s probably a slightly embarrassing number of hours that might kill my whole thesis. But that’s the past! Forward to Friction!
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This resonated. I experience this with any tool that can inform/direct future life by spending intentional time now.
E.g., I recently set up a recurring fairly complex project to maintain some machines, and in the process I was asking myself: do I want to be responsible for this? What is the right amount of thinking to do about it in advance vs. each time I deal with it? If I make my responsibilities too straightforward, will I wait too long to teach someone else?
Without planning, I might’ve had similar thoughts as I half-remembered my responsibilities over the next few years. Wouldn’t bet on it.
In the military they say “slow is smooth and smooth is fast”. Makes sense!
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True. But starting out, the saying I heard most often was “Drop and give me 20” 
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I was going to remark that this obsession with speed is an American one (that bleeds into other English-speaking cultures to a larger or small extent depending on their relationship to the U.S.). Then I noticed that even in this thread most the answers are from people who speak English as a first language (that I’ve observed anyway) - none of my fellow Europeans have turned up in here.
Not all of us in the world value speed over quality.
This comment amused me, I didn’t even know they were so common in the U.S.! I am French and live in the U.K. and in both the communities I interact with electric garage doors are rare! But both communities live in older houses and re-wiring electrics is a pain that most people probably wouldn’t commit to unless they were doing other “big jobs” on the house.
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I like that distinction and way of expressing it. That is a keeper for future reference! 
Oh yes. When my brother was a teenager, he and his friends would drive through neighborhoods clicking a couple of popular door opener remotes. It was immediately obvious which home owners had not changed their default code.
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Several years ago I ruptured two disks in my back. I am very happy garage door openers are a thing. 
I certainly do not value speed over quality as a general rule. I find it curious that one would even think that making things efficient somehow equates to a decrease in quality. Consider the aforementioned garage door openers, the usage of such has certainly not degraded my experience of garage door opening.
I do understand that making things faster can lead to items of lesser quality. When going out to dinner I’ll choose nice sit-down restaurant over McDonalds. We are not entirely uncivilized on this side of the pond.
Faster != Better.
Faster != Worse.
Faster = Faster.
It is up to each of us to decide what enhances our life and what detracts. Making things more efficient has been a net gain in my life. And I reiterate, it gives me more time to spend on the things that matter to me.
“Not everything worth doing is worth doing well.”
—Tom West, from The Soul of a New Machine by Tracy Kidder, 1981
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My wife certainly doesn’t. (I’ll get my coat)
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To be honest a significant number of garages built in the UK for new build houses are not big enough for a family car. The tend to become storage spaces or converted into additional rooms.
I don’t have a garage, but the space by my house where the drive is (I.e the space to park by your house) is less than 2.7m wide so if I built a garage on the side assuming Wall Width of at least 30cm, it’d leave me about 50cm to open the car door. And my car isn’t large.
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