SCARF DAY AND A STORY FROM HARVARD

It was Scarf Day today: the first day of the season when a scarf is not just acceptable but actually essential to keep that chilly wind at bay.

It's turned cold. The sun is later up, the fog seeps across the morning and there's the hint of a sparkling frost in the air. It is winter's fingers stretching icily back from the future and clutching the cool blue skies of Autumn.

I spent most of Scarf Day today in a warm office talking about processes and plans. The Project Manager told me a story about a Harvard professor who demonstrated 'prioritisation' to his students by taking a glass and filling it with large rocks.

'Now each of these rocks represents a big task you have to complete. See how they quickly fill up your life?" said the professor, apparently, holding the glass aloft. "Now, is the glass full?"

"Yessir," said the students.

"Ah, not quite," he replied, and proceeded to pour a handful of smaller stones into the glass. The stones rattled into the gaps. "How about now?" he said.

"Well it's full-er!" said someone.

"Indeed, but there's room for more!" cried the professor as he dumped a bag of sand on the desk. Gently, he started pouring the sand over the stones in the glass until every last gap was filled with the tiniest grains.

"Get the big tasks out of the way first," he said, "and then the smaller tasks will take care of themselves in the time available."

At that point, one particular student got up and left the room. After a few minutes he returned clutching a bottle of Budweiser. He cranked off the lid and started pouring it into the sand-covered stone-filled glass on the professor's desk.

"And what was that all about?" asked the professor with a raised eyebrow.

"Wellsir," replied the student, "It just goes to show that no matter how busy you are... there's always time for a beer."

I think the Project Manager was trying to get a point across to me about contingency time - that bit of the week which inevitably gets filled with the sandy small stuff that you can't anticipate. For me though, the sandy stuff is the bits of the rest of my life that get stuck in the glass whether I like it or not, filling my thoughts and nibbling my time.

These are things that I grind down, from misshapen rocks to tiny, beautiful grains that flow and pour like liquid. At least, that's what I tell myself, wandering along the road thinking them all through.

As I walked home, I buried my nose in the scarf, the same scarf I had had at university fifteen years ago, gently eroding some difficult thoughts as I went.

What did the professor do with that glass afterwards? It must have been a nightmare to clean out.