The importance of pacing becomes more pronounced as one grows
older.
The importance of pacing becomes more pronounced as one grows older.
I frequently put off doing high school term papers until the veritable last minute, telling myself that each could be done in two or three hours, so what was the rush?
Invariably on the weekend preceding the Monday that it was due, something happened. One semester it was the family’s worry about my grandmother’s sudden illness that made such work almost impossible (she recovered to live for two more years) and another time it was a power failure that lasted well into Sunday afternoon. It seemed that something always happened, and one memorable weekend I had three papers due on the same day for three different subjects.
The result was that I often wrote well into Monday morning to do work that could easily have been done weeks earlier. After each time, I vowed to not repeat that hard-learned lesson but soon lapsed into procrastination again.
That complicated my life because my parents ingrained into their children the need for punctuality. “If you tell someone you’re going to be somewhere at a certain time, be there,” my father frequently told us. “Otherwise your word won’t be worth anything.”
So, with my tendency to procrastinate coupled with the necessity of being on time, I frequently arrived at a place a minute or so early but ill-prepared to meet the obligations due there.
Two years of Army service further complicated life. The officers had rigid schedules for us and few excuses for failure to abide by them were tolerated. That was fine to a point but if, say, there was to be a field problem at which our company was due at 10 in the morning, the battalion commander impressed upon the company commanders the need for punctuality.
The company commander, in turn, determined to have the company out by 9 to avoid risk of tardiness. It trickled down to the platoon commander, who decided he would have us in place by 8.
The result was that we arose much earlier than usual, ate a hurried breakfast, stood reveille, then were transported to the staging area by 7:30 or thereabouts. So, while the officers had coffee in the command tents, we shivered outside, sleepy-eyed, for 2 1/2 hours or more until the field problem began, with the non-commissioned officers inspecting our equipment several times.
When I became a newsman, I learned from the first day that the deadline was unforgiving. You gathered the facts for your story, no matter how difficult, and had it to the editor by the prescribed time. You learned to be firm with people who promised to return your call “in 30 minutes” but did not do so. It often became necessary to tell them after several repeated calls, “We would rather have had your comments for the story but we will run it without them unless you can tell me now.” Most usually came through then.
It went that way for decades and many colleagues developed high blood pressure and ulcers over the years. For the first few months of semi-retirement, I found my anxiety rising until deadline when it fell again, and realized how completely I had been conditioned by the demands of my profession.
Life is much easier now. I can sleep late most mornings and get in a little writing. When I go to the Free Lance office in the afternoon (well after deadline), the editorial staff allows me to hang around for an hour or so. Out of gratitude, I struggle to refrain from telling the young reporters how we did it when I was a young reporter.
I never talk about pacing. Even if they understood it, it could be detrimental to the daily production of the newspaper.
