This little tidbit about Buffet is hard to confirm, as Jason admits in his post. However, I can confirm something like this is common behavior in China.
I first experienced it when going to China in 2000 to meet with banks. My job was to convince them to let us modernize their software and provide Internet banking. We would have a meeting setup and present to a room of top officials. These meetings could never be confirmed until the day before. Keep in mind I had to first fly from NY to Vancouver to Hong Kong to get to Beijing with no schedule of meetings, just several that were in constant "maybe" status and no clear dates.
A typical meeting (once I cleared the previous evening's dinner meeting, also unscheduled, to be sniffed out) would be a vice-chairman, the head of IT, a few others. Then we'd go to a big lunch. If they liked what they saw, word got to the Chairman and he would join us at lunch, we'd get to know each other a bit and then if that suited him, have a meeting with him after lunch. After quite a bit of this, it became clear this was a pattern. In years to come, I learned to accept that all meetings were in flux and decided the day or only hours before. It turns out to be very effective for them in several ways. The multilayered approach allows for quick vetting before access to the decision maker. And the short scheduling approach allows them to constantly reshuffle the deck.
But, of course, as with Buffet (if indeed its true), in China, this behavior is exhibited most by those with the power to do so. The rest of society plans several days or weeks in advance.
"I'm totally serious. If you pull it off -- and in many structured jobs, you simply can't -- this simple tip alone can make a huge difference in productivity.
"By not keeping a schedule, I mean: refuse to commit to meetings, appointments, or activities at any set time in any future day.
"As a result, you can always work on whatever is most important or most interesting, at any time.
"Want to spend all day writing a research report? Do it!
"Want to spend all day coding? Do it!
"Want to spend all day at the cafe down the street reading a book on personal productivity? Do it!
"When someone emails or calls to say, "Let's meet on Tuesday at 3", the appropriate response is: "I'm not keeping a schedule for 2007, so I can't commit to that, but give me a call on Tuesday at 2:45 and if I'm available, I'll meet with you."
"Or, if it's important, say, "You know what, let's meet right now."
"Clearly this only works if you can get away with it. If you have a structured job, a structured job environment, or you're a CEO, it will be hard to pull off.
"But if you can do it, it's really liberating, and will lead to far higher productivity than almost any other tactic you can try."
I first experienced it when going to China in 2000 to meet with banks. My job was to convince them to let us modernize their software and provide Internet banking. We would have a meeting setup and present to a room of top officials. These meetings could never be confirmed until the day before. Keep in mind I had to first fly from NY to Vancouver to Hong Kong to get to Beijing with no schedule of meetings, just several that were in constant "maybe" status and no clear dates.
A typical meeting (once I cleared the previous evening's dinner meeting, also unscheduled, to be sniffed out) would be a vice-chairman, the head of IT, a few others. Then we'd go to a big lunch. If they liked what they saw, word got to the Chairman and he would join us at lunch, we'd get to know each other a bit and then if that suited him, have a meeting with him after lunch. After quite a bit of this, it became clear this was a pattern. In years to come, I learned to accept that all meetings were in flux and decided the day or only hours before. It turns out to be very effective for them in several ways. The multilayered approach allows for quick vetting before access to the decision maker. And the short scheduling approach allows them to constantly reshuffle the deck.
But, of course, as with Buffet (if indeed its true), in China, this behavior is exhibited most by those with the power to do so. The rest of society plans several days or weeks in advance.