Bishop's Razor

Bishop's Razor is a practical tool or philosophical rule to employ in planning our time to ensure that important obligations are not unnecessarily placed too close together in time and that there is a decent gap between events.

The thesis behind Bishop's Razor is that by giving some space between important things it enables more efficient performance and also better enjoyment of them. The creator of Bishop's Razor realised that commitments are made unnecessarily complicated not because of anything inherent but solely by bad timing and poor organisation leading to uncomfortable closeness of obligations.

This Razor has important applications at work, for instance not having consecutive meetings immediately following each other without a break such as a short intermission between meetings to enjoy a glass of water, tea, relax or meditate cognitively to prepare one better for the subsequent commitments.

The application of Bishop's Razor in personal social event settings is obvious. If you have closely following social events, you cannot properly or fully enjoy the earlier one, and you effectively end up not enjoying either - because you hold back on the first one and become already tired by the time you rush to the second event.

In a busy work situation you cannot perhaps limit the obligations to one per day, but the advice of Bishop's Razor is to select only one social thing a day.

Prudent employment of Bishop's Razor has multiple benefits in terms of cognitive wellness and can work wonders on holiday and at Christmas. With practice, Bishop's Razor is simple to employ, even in a busy life, but requires discipline and supporters to take responsibility for their own time and to push back against others interfering with their diaries and timetables, in both work and social settings.

Bishop's Razor similarly employs the practical advantages of other equally important philosophical Razors. Its application yields enhanced cognitive performance between commitments, fuller enjoyment of each individual engagement, reduced fatigue over time, a greater sense of control over one's own schedule, and improved overall wellbeing - particularly during the busier seasons of the year.

Bishop's Razor shares kinship with a distinguished tradition of philosophical principles. The following are among the most notable:

• Occam's Razor: perhaps the most famous Razor, the problem-solving principle that recommends searching for explanations constructed with the smallest possible set of elements. Attributed to William of Ockham, the famous 14th-century English philosopher and theologian. Popularly, the principle is sometimes paraphrased as "of two competing theories, the simpler explanation of an entity is to be preferred".
• Hanlon's Razor: Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by incompetence or stupidity
• Hitchen's Razor: What can be asserted without evidence can be dismissed without evidence
• Hume's Razor: Causes must be sufficiently able to produce the effect assigned to them
• Popper's falsifiability principle: For a theory to be considered scientific, it must be possible to disprove or refute it
• Newton's flaming laser sword: If something cannot be settled by experiment, it is not worth debating
• Grice's Razor: Address what the speaker actually meant, instead of the literal meaning of what the speaker actually said
• Sagan Standard: Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence

What is a “Philosophical Razor”?

In philosophy, a Razor is a principle or rule of thumb that allows for the elimination — "shaving off" — of unwise behaviours or unlikely explanations for a statement. A philosophical Razor is not an unbreakable rule or principle; it is not always right 100% of the time, but it is right more often than not and is therefore a useful mental shortcut that allows you to make decisions and solve problems quicker and easier — and to enjoy and perform better.

For details of the creator of Bishop's Razor, please see: www.edwardbishop.net/#About-the-Author