Time out of nowhere

I was supposed to be in Mumbai today for a meeting. Heavy rains and a “red alert” meant that the meeting got cancelled and I’m in Bangalore. This was a “high transaction cost” meeting – I was supposed to spend the entire day in Mumbai to be able to do the meeting comfortably. Now the whole day is “free”.

The meeting will be rescheduled for another day, and that day, which as it stands would have been spent in Bangalore, will have to be spent in Mumbai. In that sense the meeting has just been postponed rather than being cancelled.

Yet I feel that “time has been created” thanks to the cancellation. I hadn’t budgeted for any work to be done today outside of that meeting, and now suddenly I have lots of time.

And it has already started – with some Parkinson Principle. I was supposed to finish my presentation for today’s meeting last night. Postponement has meant I’ve been approaching it rather slowly, and still ploughing through it. I expect to finish it by tonight.

OK I just got a call now and it seems the meeting has been rescheduled to tomorrow. So I’m off to Bombay tomorrow morning, and with the meeting being so close, there is no “time gain”, for time gained today is lost tomorrow. Even with a steep discount rate, there’s no benefit here.

However, if the meeting had been postponed to next week, or sometime later, then I would’ve celebrated, and continued to have a gala time today!

Put Comment