The digital age has brought about exchange of information at unprecedented scales and speeds. Both within multilingual communities and across boundaries, translation is called upon to make information available with greater efficiency. While increasingly mature technology helps in this process, this paper argues for the discipline to put in context the translation phenomena emerging from strategies that have time taken as their prime concern. Specifically, it discusses the principle of disposability of information in determining minimum quality to be achieved as a way to systematically approach time-oriented translation methods. The discussion may have implications for how translation is practiced and understood and also represent a dimension in translation that can be further explored.