As I’ve mentioned before, when I was married to Susan she once told me that she was going to stay up late to complete an assignment for Sociology.

“Is it due in the morning?” I asked.

“No.  It’s not due for three weeks, but I like to finish my work as early as I can.”

I was less than happy because I always preferred that we go to bed at the same time.  And besides, who would want to finish an assignment as soon as they could?  I’ve always followed the work/deadline rule — no deadline, no work.

Though I regard my attitude towards deadlines as being highly efficient, others might consider it procrastination (with negative connotations).  So here is my rebuttal — the advantages of waiting.

1. You may not need to do the job at all, and that will leave time in your life for something you enjoy more. Shortly before the end of the term for one graduate seminar, the professor, for personal reasons, canceled class, including the assigned readings and the term paper. Instead, he asked us to come to his office and tell him what grade we deserved.  I received an excellent grade, and never had to study Sartre or Camus.
2. If you wait until the last hour, or minute, you might find a better solution. Or a quicker solution.
3. It’s exciting – will I or won’t I make the deadline? Some people use action sports to get their adrenaline stirring. I prefer the suspense of finishing a task with no time to spare. Whew!
4. Waiting encourages creativity. When our American Lit. professor collected term papers at the beginning of class, I didn’t turn mine in.  When he asked I said, “I thought the paper was due by the end of class, not the beginning.”  He gave me a weird look, but accepted the paper after I completed it during our fifteen-minute break.
5. Your spouse will be happier because you’ll have more time to spend with them. (This may personal to me).

These are five benefits.  I’m sure there are more, but I have to stop now – I’m up against the deadline for this blog, which still has to be edited, revised, and posted.  I also need a photo.

See you next week.  I’ve never missed the deadline for my blog.  Yet.

Alan

When I was learning to play chess, I read a book that suggested everyone should play against better players in order to improve their game. But to gain confidence, one should play against someone less experienced.

While that might be true for chess, this approach doesn’t always apply to Debate.

Speech and Debate were my primary extracurricular activities in both high school and college.  Like many male debaters at that time, I had an outsized ego that I brought with me into competition.  I still remember poking fun at one inexperienced team because, in my opinion, they were inept.  My partner and I lost that debate, almost certainly because we were incredibly obnoxious.

Though I was a good enough to attend USC on a debate scholarship, I was not quite good enough to win many national tournaments (even if I thought I should have won every single one).

I still remember a competition held in Lawrence, Kansas.  My partner and I performed well enough to advance into the quarter-final round where we debated the merits of national health insurance against a team from Harvard.

The other team quoted Nelson Rockefeller (governor of New York at that time). My partner responded by noting Mr. Rockefeller was not a medical authority.

One of our opponents, speaking almost faster than I could comprehend, answered.

“We did not cite Governor Rockefeller as a medical authority,” he said, “but rather as a (pause for effect) financial expert.”  The audience laughed.  Sixty years later I still remember the exact words. Not surprisingly, he Harvard team went on to win the tournament.

That debater from Harvard was Laurence Tribe. He was good.  Very good.  In fact, he was so good that I involuntarily admired him even while my debate partner and I were being verbally skewered. I also admitted, if only to myself, that we rightfully lost that round. It might be the only high school or college debate where I believed the other team was clearly better.

Larry went on to become a professor at Harvard Law School.  He recently retired, but is still well known as an outstanding constitutional law scholar.  You can look him up on Wikipedia.

Appropriately, Larry was an educator for many years.  He certainly gave me one of the more memorable lessons of my life.

Alan

The last time I was bored was when I ran out of options during my summer break at the age of ten.  After all, how many times a week could I visit the Los Angeles Zoo or watch a soap opera on afternoon TV?

A Jules Feiffer cartoon published in the L.A. Times still makes me chuckle. The text is as follows:

“I went to the Laundromat with 12 shorts and 12 pairs of socks.  Got back 10 shorts and 8 pairs of socks.

“I went to the Laundromat with 10 shorts and 8 pairs of socks.  Got back 9 shorts and 4 pairs of socks.

“I went to the Laundromat with 9 shorts and 4 pairs of socks.  Got back 6 shorts, no socks, and a note – ‘Bring me more socks.  The Machine.’”

My mind is similar to “The Machine” that devoured the socks – it munches thoughts from the moment I wake up until I fall asleep.  I need a constant supply of ideas to keep it busy.

When I opened my law office on April 1, 1967 I realized that I would also need a continuous supply of new cases to keep active — and to earn enough to pay office expenses as well as cover the mortgage payments on my home loan.  I’m still a little surprised that my law partner and I never ran out of cash.  Some months we came close.

A year later I formed ACF Property Management, Inc. to buy, sell, and manage commercial real estate.  That has kept me busy ever since. When I mention that there is at least one minor disaster every single day in property management – I’m not kidding. It keeps me and my employees on our toes.

When I was thirty, I enrolled in afternoon college courses to keep my already busy mind even more occupied as I earned another degree.  At that time I wasn’t happy unless I had at least fifteen balls in the air at the same time.

Now (as I reminded Daveen today) I’m no longer 80, and keeping three or four balls in the air simultaneously is more than enough.

Of course, as I write this, I’m also responding to emails and watching football on TV.

Chapter 7 in my People Tools book is entitled “Patterns Persist.”

My multi-tasking pattern still persists.

Alan “The Juggler” Fox