The Ambareesh Principle and First Come First Served Nature of Calendars

The story goes (this is third hand information, so take it with adequate amount of salt) that a few years ago a bunch of people went to actor (and now Minister) MH Ambareesh’s house asking him to be a chief guest at a function they were going to organise three months hence. Ambareesh, it is said, gave them a funny look, saying it was impossible for him to commit to something so far away. He asked them to get back to him ten days before the event.

Based on this (possibly apocryphal) story, I christen this the “Ambareesh Principle” – when someone invites you for an event or meeting that is way too far away for you to plan, you refuse to commit and ask them to come back to you a reasonable number of days before the event. (Perhaps Ambareesh might not like his name being attached to this principle, but since he is a public figure, I’m entitled to use his name).

The problem with calendars (of the variety we use on our computers, like iCal or Outlook) is that they operate on a “First Come First Served” basis. The way calendars are designed, you need to decide whether you are going to attend an event or not in an “online” fashion – without knowing what other event might come up at the same time. This can at times lead to suboptimal decisions, and unsavoury cancellations, for you have to go back on your commitments when something more interesting comes along.

Because of the FCFS nature of our calendars, you have people (the usually busy types – CEOs and suchtypes) who have their calendars blocked for ages together, and in order to get an appointment with them, you have to take one a long time in the future. And with such appointments you never know if you might get pre-empted by something else “more pressing” that might come along in the meantime. Leading to lower efficiency all round.

The question is if we can redesign the calendar, and the “blocking time” system in order to make it more efficient, and make it compatible with the “Ambareesh principle”. Is there a way that we can respond to far-flung meeting requests with “too far to take appointments. Ping me <= X days in advance”, or set some kind of a auto reply to our calendar systems to send the above message for meeting requests sent too early?

And what is going to happen when CEOs and other such “important people” decide to implement such a scheme where they don’t take meeting requests more than N days in advance? Maybe we should get Ambareesh to answer! 🙂