Sorry. Hope I didn’t disrupt anyone’s Friday morning routine and you were able to source a suitable tune with which to greet the weekend.
I’ve no real excuse for my tardiness. I didn’t have too many conflicting priorities and I wasn’t ill anymore. In fact, at the start of the week, I was feeling pretty relaxed. But instead of cracking on and getting ahead, I just let work expand to fit a space, safe in the knowledge that everything was on schedule. But it only takes one thing, doesn’t it?
In this case, the one thing was a mid-week team lunch that overran somewhat. Suffice to say that the evening was a write-off as, instead of writing this, I downed pint after pint of water and ate beige carbs in the hope of avoiding a hangover the next day. I did not avoid a hanger over the next day.
So now, I’m typing this on a train. We are where we are, as our senior politicians are so fond of saying. Who’d believe that I came top of the class on a project management course some years ago? Coincidentally, I was reminded of that training event at the previously mentioned team lunch. A colleague who was also on the same course, and who I am delighted to be working with again now all these year later, recalled how I beat the office overachiever in the final exam. He was so angry. It was hilarious.
I don’t think project management and time management are the same thing though, are they? Project management obviously involves a lot of timekeeping but I think about two-thirds of the time it’s other people’s time that you’re keeping. In sporting terms, you’re not the one running you’re the coach to cycles next to the runner telling them to keep their knees up. (Or what ever it is proper coaches say. Sarah Millican just tells me she’s proud of me and suggests I have a banana.)
Time management, it seems to me, is closer to pain management. If you’re suffering from anything that lasts longer than a hangover (dunno why that example sprang to mind), you’re not supposed to wait until you’re actually in pain before you take your tablets. You get in early before anything starts to really hurt. And so too with good time management: put the effort in before you fall behind.
But if that was so easy, you’d never hear people say that they need a deadline to get anything done. Procrastination would be virtually unheard of. And no one would need a toaster timer called Mr Poppie. No all-nighters. No sprints to the finish. No more end-of-project lunches or nights out with colleagues where you’re equally sad and delighted that it’s over, both exhausted and giddy with delight.
And that sounds kinda boring, doesn’t it? Yeah. Sod time management, enjoy the ride.
You are lovely
Thank you for all the kind wishes and supportive messages last week. They genuinely meant a lot and were a much needed shot in the arm.
Friday dance break
A tenuous link to this week’s theme perhaps but as Richard O’Brian warns us: Time is fleeting, madness takes it’s toll.
Ah come on. Don’t be like that. It’s just a jump to the left…
I mean that's an opportunity for me to quote both Spaced AND Half Man Half Biscuit at you. But there's enough snark in the world already and it is A Tune.