People usually procrastinate when projects begin, then rush around at the last minute to finish. It’s all because of net present value.
NPV is an accounting calculation that gives the current value of a future asset/liability. Getting money today is better than getting it next year, so NPV uses a percentage for risk/interest/opportunity cost to adjust from then to now. Multiply that by the time delay then subtract, and you get present value.
Likewise, spending time or money next year is better than doing it today. The math says: the more you can push to the end, the better.
Net present value is not something we calculate in our accounting software (though depreciation is almost the same). NPV is a planning thing, not bookkeeping. If you need it, Excel has a function to give a number quickly.
Allocating time and effort is important for survival, so every living thing seems to have an internal NPV calculator. Usually, it says “don’t think too far ahead”. In fact, humans have a much longer time horizon than most other species. Excepting beavers and orcas, maybe.
Work on TurtleSoft’s accounting software has gone that way. At first, completion seemed close: just a year or so to finish. So, the project was all-consuming. The expected reward was large, and worth whipping out in that time frame.
When things proved harder than expected, work slowed down. Other projects with nearer rewards took precedence. Then Covid took massive attention for a spell: fear of dying will do that. Despite all the barriers, programming did continue. Just slowly.
Now that the end is in sight, the new accounting software gets more attention and time. That probably will accelerate.
It also helps that TurtleSoft is firmly settled into its new home. The garden did great this summer, thanks to work put in over the past year. Some construction still needs doing, but nothing major. No more relocations are on the horizon. Finances are solid, unlike the final push to finish Goldenseal. That version was built on massive credit card debt. There’s much less anxiety, this time around.
Dennis Kolva
Programming Director
TurtleSoft.com
