It was the best of times, it was the worst of times.
Ok so I can’t claim that one as my own but it describes my
problem quite well. The problem is thus: When do you ask a person to do
something? Weather it’s attending an event, booking a service or making an
appointment. I have recently encountered this problem. I have been organising
an event for our church; so being a good, studious person I asked people a
couple of months ago if they would be interested in being involved, gave them
all the information and then sat back with people saying that they would come.
I called around this week (the event is this Sunday) only to
find that many people had forgotten about it or had booked other things in its
place. A little disappointed, I rearranged things, and now the event will go
ahead just fine. But it made me question when is the best time to ask people to
do a thing?
Now as for myself, I am an organised sort (for the most
part). I keep a google calendar (avail from my phone) and keep it up to date, always
consulting it when someone asks me if I’m available for something. Now I know
that this sort of thing won’t work for everyone; some people prefer paper and
some prefer to keep it all in their head. Others have various combinations of
all of these methods.
And yet, despite all of these varied and different methods
at one’s disposal, people still forget and still misplace things and still
don’t turn up. When is the best time to ask?
Say I have an event coming in 2 months. That would be
Christmas, right? And people get fussy about their Christmas plans. So do I ask
someone now for a Christmas party? Or do I ask in a month? But by then most
people will have already made plans – so about 2 months then, yes? But then
what about holidays? My wife had to hand in her requests for leave about 4
weeks ago. So 3 months for Christmas then.
But what about “normal” time? 2 months seems to be too long,
but for the holidays poked around the year. But you give about that much time
for wedding notices. So what then for events? Trips? Movie outings?
It seems that there should be some kind of guide for these
things, a manual put forth that one can use as reference.
Then there is the category of external things created not by
oneself or by friends or family. Take as an example the upcoming date – October
21 2015, a date set up by a movie made 30 years ago that will see many people
re-watching 3 old movies – Back to the Future. How does one account for these
events?
I don’t have an answer for any of these questions, which
bugs me a little. This is the sort of thing I like to have an answer for. I
like to be able to give people enough notice, but I also like people to turn up
to things they say they’ll turn up to.
I would like to hear other people’s opinions here – how much
notice do you give for different events? What about people that have to travel
out of town to get somewhere? Let me know on the Facebook link or in the
comments below.
