Scheduling

[nou]

Part of what makes scheduling hard for me is that I have to both:

• schedule things a long way in advance; and
• rearrange my schedule at short notice.

The main reason for scheduling things a long way in advance is that it gives me a structure to slot in small tasks that have to be done in specific locations; for example, I realised I need to go and look for a memorial stone in a specific churchyard, so I slotted it in to a day when I plan to work in a cafe a short bus ride away from the churchyard. These small tasks come up frequently but randomly, at varying levels of urgency. It also gives me time to think over my plans and sometimes make them more efficient.

There are several reasons for needing to rearrange at short notice; for example, someone I want to interview asked me to come at a specific time on a specific day at a place near the abovementioned churchyard, so I swapped a work-at-home day for my working-in-that-cafe day. Other reasons include bad light/weather on a day when I’d planned to take photos.

I’m OK with this in general, but it does make it hard to plan things with other people, since rearranging at short notice is unacceptable, inconvenient, and/or unfair to them.