This article is part of 20in20, a series of 20 blog posts in 20 days to kick off the blogging year 2020. This is 20in20:05.
A good friend of mine, back when we were students, studied film, among other things. We’d go to the movie theater frequently. At some point, he jokingly pointed out a useful guideline to me, that I found can be usefully applied way outside of movie theater visits.
So today I present this back to you, paraphrased, as Engesser’s Law:
“If you notice you’ll need to go to the bathroom before the movie ends, the best time to go is when you notice, as the movie will be more interesting at any later stage going forward.”
Because movies are built, obviously, with a dramatic arc that goes up and up and up. So, if you know it’s necessary, now’s better than later. Any later interruption will be disproportionately worse. (If it’s a good movie, that is.)
So I’m taking the liberty to add two corollaries and expand this from the world of movie theaters into everyday life, both work and personal:
First corollary: If you know any task will become urgent later, the best time to finish it is right now.
Second corollary: If you delay finishing a task until it becomes too urgent to further delay, you reduce your own agency and may have created avoidable additional damage to yourself and possibly others
