Andrew Kay: Time Out
My diary is a nightmare! Seriously, given that 2014 was the year I had planned to cut back on going out and instead treat my body to some well earned rest, I appear to be busier than ever.
A few days ago my smartish phone went ping and offered me a new app that would help me organise my time. I was intrigued, I mean, anything that might help…
It was not the solution that I hoped it might be. It is good in a sense, offering me means of making efficient lists of things to do, prioritising the most urgent and important and reminding me when I failed. But sadly it took quite a time inputting the neccessary information in the first place. This it turned out, would be a job that would come at the top of that prioritised list. And in that last sentence is the key word – job! Yes, another job that would prey on my time. So being organised would in fact take me longer.
A day later my online diary suddenly started to list events that I had no knowledge of. Lectures on subjects that I have no interest in were popping into my schedule with alarming frequency and with no explanation. I had no idea what was going on and no idea how to stop it. I tried turning things off but then dates that I had scheduled disappeared. I sought advice from my IT chum but he was unavailable and I was left in diary limbo.
All this happens at a time when my work life is a complex mass of appointments. I am frantically running around making my International Chef EXchange project and filming it. I will be busy editing the footage already shot and recording the voice overs. At the same time I have to fly off to Sweden and from there by ferry to a small island off the coast to talk to a chef about participating in a future ICEx film.
Back here the brilliant Sian Elizabeth Selway is composing music for the ICEx programme, music that I am loving, and Glen is sending me very exciting files for the animated title sequence for the show.
I love collaborative working; pitching ideas back and forth and creating really exciting work is the way I have always liked to work, and working with such great young talent is inspiring.
“Being organised would in fact take me longer”
But like everything else in my life it takes time and it takes organisation – and time is the one thing that I seem to be short of. I’d like some time to sit back and watch Coronation Street as it is broadcast and not watch it on catch-up after midnight. I’d like time to invite friends round for supper and cook for them rather than always meeting up in town. I’d like time to hang my paintings, iron my clothes, dust, vacuum, clean, garden, shave on a regular basis… and from time just sit about doing absolutely sweet Fanny Adams. Chance would be a fine thing!
Conversely I would rather be this busy than not busy at all. As they say, whoever THEY are, you’re a long time dead. So keep on throwing it at me. I apologise in advance for moaning about being too busy, too tired, too full or too drunk. Forgive me for those moments when I simply forget or fail to get straight back and remind me to keep smiling, even if that smile does make me look like a befuddled loon.
