Fawlty Towers

A couple of nights ago, I re-watched the first episode of Fawlty Towers (IMDB) for the umpteenth time. Although I've watched the series enough for it to be part of my repertoire of humour (I leernt eet from a boook!), the last time I watched it was so long ago that it was like watching it for the first time again. Someone's been kind enough to create a transcript of the episode - have a look here if you've no idea what Fawlty Towers is all about (and bear with me, there's a point to this).

It struck me while I was watching the episode that while Basil Fawlty is undeniably a stuck up, odious pillock, at least half of his problems stem from simple bad time management and poor communication, rather than his more obvious personality faults.
If instead of jumping to the latest task presented to him (regardless of his current task), he took a moment to consider which should be resolved first, at least half of the problems would never have occurred. Of course, trying to suck up to an aristocrat doesn't help with that!

Time Management is a tricky subject for most people though. We all fail at it now and then - those days when, despite being busy from sun-up to sun-down, we seem to have achieved nothing at all. There's many ways to deal with huge lists of tasks, and they all start by telling you that none of the other methods work. For what it's worth, here's my way of dealing with it all:

Magnús Magnússon probably had the simplest starting point to offer - "I've started, so I'll finish". Once you've picked something up, don't put it down again until you've finished it. That applies to everything from tidying a room (don't hang a coat on the bannisters "for now" - spend the extra 30 seconds to put it away properly) to writing a long document (keep working on the same one until it's done).

That said, there are some exceptions to that rule, and for me, proper time management boils down to working out what is, and is not, a valid exception.
Emails: For me, reading emails is a valid and necessary exception. Some of the messages I get demand instant responses, others are a lower priority, but will only take a moment to reply to. Anything else gets flagged for "Follow Up", and moves to my task list for later.
Phone Calls: It's much harder to delay answering a phone until it's convenient! However, there are times when it's necessary to ignore the phone, or get someone else to answer it for you - and it's worth knowing when that is. You also must consider whether actions arising from a phone call are quick and/or important enough to break from your current task for.
Scheduled Tasks: This is the only other thing that should break the "I've started, so I'll finish" rule. If you plan to do something at a particular time - whether it's eat lunch, watch a TV program, or go to a meeting - you should do your best to do it then, even if you're right in the middle of something else (after all, if you scheduled it for a particular time, there must have been a reason for that, right?)

As a rule of thumb, only tasks with a much higher priority are worth breaking your current task for, unless it's going to take a very small amount of time. For me, that small amount of time is about 90 seconds - if it's going to take longer than that, I will forget what I was doing and end up wasting time.


The King of Hearts provides the other component to my time management strategy - "Begin at the beginning, and go on till you come to the end; then stop."
To me, that's all that needs saying - it doesn't really matter whether you order your tasks by priority, length or enjoyability; just start with the first one, and keep going until they're all done. Personally, I sort by priority and length - a very quick, low priority task will often get done first, simply so I can reduce the list as fast as possible, but longer running, lower priority tasks will take second place to any high priority task.

In the end though, as long as it all gets done, any method will do. Just remember, when it comes to other people, don't blame on stupidity or laziness what can be easily explained by simple bad planning.

Edit (Tuesday): It seems I missed the funny at some point yesterday - I honestly meant to make this one a funny post, but it strayed into a lecture on Time Management. Weird what happens when you're low on caffeine!

This should make up for it:

A farmer is herding his sheep across a road, when a fancy sports car pulls up and stops beside him. The driver gets out, looks at the sheep crossing the road, and walks over to the farmer.
"I bet," says the sports car driver, "I can tell you exactly how many sheep you have, without leaving this spot right here."
"No chance," says the Farmer - "Half of them are still behind that hill."
"Let's make it sporting then" responds the driver "If I get it right, I keep one of your sheep; if I'm wrong, you can have my car"

This is too good an offer for the Farmer to refuse, so he accepts the bet, and watches as the driver of the sports car opens up his laptop, links up his satellite phone, and starts pulling information off the internet. After a couple of minutes, he announces "Done! You have one hundred and fifty two sheep - and three of them are still pregnant."

The farmer's amazed - he'd been hoping to use that extra three to weasel out of the debt, but he concedes and allows the driver to pick out any sheep he likes. The driver looks around, then selects a small black one that looks a little more energetic than the others, and prepares to leave.

"Wait" cries the farmer "Double or nothing - if I can guess your day job, you'll return that, otherwise you can have another?" "Okay, that sounds fair" says the driver...

"Right... well.... clearly, you're a consultant" says the Farmer. "You're right," answers the driver, "but how did you know?"

"Simple - you showed up un-requested, told me something I already knew, and charged me for the privilege. Not only that, but you know nothing about my business... Now give me back my sheep-dog!"