Hello, Potty Chair

If you know much about anything that's been going on in my life lately, you know that Chris and I began potty traning Benton last week. Okay, so before you jump on my case about how crazy I am becuase he's only 20 months old, let me explain why we started so early.
1. An older, wiser friend of mine who has raised 2 girls and also used to run a daycare recently told me that she potty trained all of her daycare kids at 20 months, and all of them (except one, whose parents didn't help) were trained within a month.
2. I read a book called "Toilet Traning in Less Than a Day" which lead me to believe that my little guy could be totally trained to use his potty chair in under 4 hours (WRONG!)
3. I seem to have this irrational fear that if I don't start now, Benton will be wearning Depends through college.

Well, here's what I think of potty training so far:


IT SUCKS!
Okay, now that I've gotten that out of my system...
So here's our strategy:
Benton wakes up in the morning, we take off his diaper, and he sits on his potty chair first thing. This is usually a successful trip, which always makes the day feel like its starting off on the right foot. However, it's usually downhill from here. Once Benton goes potty, we set a timer for 30 minutes. Then we go about our normal routine. When the timer goes off, its time to sit on the potty again. He sits as long as he's willing (usually anywhere from 2 to 10 minutes) and if he goes (which he usually doesn't) we reset the timer for 30 minutes. If he doesn't go, we reset for 15 instead. This process continues until naptime (when he wears a diaper) and starts all over again after nap. So, as you can see, it pretty much consumes our entire morning, afternoon, and evening.
In ways, I feel like we are making progress. He has gone on the chair a couple times (although they have always been times we've put him there, he's never gone on his own) and he recognizes when he traning pants are wet right away and does NOT like it.
On the other hand, I feel like we're spinning in circles and getting nowhere. I can't tell you how many times we've sat in the bathroom with him for 15 minutes waiting for him to do something and five minutes after we get up he's wet. Or one minute before we are about to go again he comes to find me and tell me he's wet. It's exhausting.
I know tht raising a toddler is work, I know potty traning is work. But really? Even if we can do this within a month, can I dedicate THIS MUCH time for an entire month? I feel like it would be SO much easier to wait another 6 months or so to see if he's acting more interested and ready rather than spinning in circles and getting nowhere. But the stubborn part of me is not ready to give up. The stubborn part of me thinks we CAN do this and he's going to get it anytime now. I feel like giving up now is the LAZY thing to do, taking the easy way out. And everyone you talk to has something different to say. So now what? Where do I go from here. Someone give me the magic answer that will solve all my parenting woes, please!
Well, better go, timer is about to go off!