Hello! I’m Michael Wilkes – a bona fide lazy person. My mother, God bless her, will attest to this. According to her…

I will spend 30 minutes figuring out how

to do a 10 minute job in 5 minutes.

That could be the definition of lazy… I’m not sure. I mistook it for a gift in automation and built a career out of it. Here’s what happened…

I started my career in Navy electronics. After four years fixing Uncle Sam’s radar gear and a couple more in the San Diego electronics industry, I went to college. In the summer between my first and second year of college, I was introduced to a retired engineer in Lookout Mountain, TN. He had a computer the size of his refrigerator sitting – wait for it – next to his refrigerator. He couldn’t type very well so I ended up helping him at the keyboard. That exposed me to computer programming for the first time.

Well… when I figured out that I could control machines through language and logic… game over! I was hooked and never looked back*. I switched to a Computer Science major and spent the next several decades doing what I loved – making machines do the work that used to take people hours or days to do.

When my database software consulting practice was 10 years old, I started thinking about what came next. At the time I was reading a lot on marketing and every book I picked up hammered me on one question… why are you different? It took me a while (I’m rather dense) but eventually it came to me…

I’m incredibly lazy! I hate work! I loath repetition! I can’t stand doing anything myself that I could get a machine to do – even if it takes me ten times as long to get the machine to do it! I love software and gadgets that save time… because time is precious and we can’t make more of it. Time-saving devices are attracted to me like magnets to a frig door… and now I and my guest writers have collected them for you here.

So that’s how Best Time Tools was born. I hope you find something here you can use, that you save time with it, and that you enjoy the minutes/hours/days that you win back doing something that you love!

Drop us an email and say hello… unless you’re too lazy, like me. In that case, just wave.

All the best,

Michael

* There was a brief moment in my freshman year when I wanted to major in philosophy. Somehow a professor enamored me with proving that chalk didn’t exist… go figure. My mother – a ridiculously practical woman – pointed out the dearth of job ads for philosophers in the paper. If not for her, this web site would be Best Tips for Winning Philosophical Arguments and I would have fewer friends.

If you don’t need time saving tools and tips, feel free to exit the bus here.

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