According to answers.com there are two mathematical definitions for an intersection:
1. The point or locus of points where one line, surface, or solid crosses another.
2. A set that contains elements shared by two or more given sets.
In all of the tasks, people and places that make up life, sometimes intersections can save us time, but we often overlook them.
My friend and colleague, Jonathan is traveling soon. Since his last moleskine is nearly full, he considered rush shipping a new one for the space to adequately journal his travels. I had an extra, and offered it to him as a solution so he wouldn’t get robbed on shipping charges. He found an intersection.
This is good; however, I missed the next intersection. My wife was coming into town (we work ‘in town’) to drop off our daughter at my office for the afternoon. Why didn’t I think to have her bring the moleskine to the office with her? I predict that we miss lots of these intersections that would save us plenty of time. I’m sure there is some extremely over-studied facet of psychology that attempts to explain all of this, but it’s a phenomenon that has only recently surfaced in my conscious.
How can we save time by noticing these intersections and acting on them in time? My example intersection was obvious to me only when it was about 10 minutes too late: the “why didn’t I think of that earlier?” zen-slap.
Hopefully in the future I can post ways to hack into that part of the mind, but for now please offer your suggestions.