Timing

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.