Things to do

How do you use unexpected free time?

It’s normal for our tutor’s schedule to be light this time of year.  School is out, so there are no current classes to support, and the standardized tests seem a long way away.  There are normally a few farsighted students (or parents), though, so he does find some employment.  Recently, however, his last remaining tutoring session on Saturday was cancelled.  Not only did he have the nominal eight hours of work time unexpectedly free, there was no need for the commute, which adds significant additional time.

What did he do with such a windfall?  Well, he maintains a list of things he needs to get done for his various projects.  There is the Master List, which has just the projects (for instance, writing a paper in conjunction with our astronomer on the colors of stars).  In addition, there’s a more immediate list with things to do, say, this weekend or next (like read certain papers about star colors).  It was a matter of a moment to pick something off the immediate list that he didn’t expect to tackle quite yet.  And if this turns out to go more quickly than expected (as it happened), there is always more.

We don’t present this as a breakthrough in time management or the best system imaginable; it’s just what has evolved over the years.  It has the advantage we stated, that there’s always something productive waiting when he gets time.  Also, the Master List contains all those tedious or unpleasant tasks that have no deadline but must be done sometime, like updating one’s will.  Some have been on the list for years.  But he does get around to them regularly, being reminded by seeing them again and again.

We think this shows two particular qualities of our tutor.  First, he is reasonably well organized.  He does not approach one person we know, whose lists form a hierarchy of tasks, deadlines, priorities and times assigned.  But neither is he as spontaneous as another person we know, apt to take up a new project at the drop of a hat and as quickly leave it.  (These two are happily married to each other.  That’s love.)

The other quality is that he always has a great number of ideas for projects as well as projects in hand.  There is no danger of his finishing breakfast one morning and saying, “I don’t have anything to do.”  Sometimes he isn’t highly motivated to work on a task, but that’s another matter.  This quality he shares with most of our correspondents and friends.  He probably has too many and too varied interests, and would be more effective (however one measures that) if he specialized more, but he does get things done.  So he made good use of the unexpected free time.

But maybe he would have done better to take a leisurely walk by the river.