Planning Time for the Unexpected
By Judith Cullen
© 2015
I remember my Franklin Day Planner fondly. It is such a great system for learning time
management. I used them for years. You
can still get them in their attractive binders as well as the now obligatory
electronic apps. I still use a lot of
the methods from those Franklin
days: making lists, marking what has to be done versus what could be done, open
Os in front of things started but not completed, big Xs on things completed. I
get great satisfaction from making those Os and Xs, like hugs and kisses all
over my daily intentions.
Something has changed from those halcyon days of my Planner. It is something I did not expect to happen,
naturally, and I am not sure that there was a symbol in the Franklin method for marking it, denoting it,
categorizing it. Back in the old days,
blurred into the haze of fond memory, it did not seem that things ever got
totally out of control on any given day.
Somehow, there was a way to write everything down and make things
conform to a plan. But that’s not the
same in my life anymore. Sometimes
something happens that just guts my entire direction. It can be technical, emotional. How am I
supposed to mark the unexpected?
I don’t live the life I lead that required a planner. That was a time of 60-80 hour work weeks at
things I cared passionately about. I
seemed to care passionately about everything in those days. I got a whole lot done, too. Crashing against the rocky shore of working that hard for decades takes its toll. I
live a much simpler life now, dictated in part by economics and in part by the
desire to pursue that elusive reason I was put into this life, while there is
still time to do so.
I still make lists. I
still keep notes. My daily task list now
inhabits paper never larger than a half sheet so that I resist the urge to
overwhelm myself with possibility. My small electronic device houses my appointments,
and little notes to myself. I have three
computers: my main that is hooked to the internet and has two screens; my
secondary which I use to do anything related to Photoshop, and which is hooked
to my printer; and a laptop which I don’t keep any data on, but which also
accomplishes a number of specialized tasks.
I have a handful of flash drives.
I know the rules of working from home, and I bet they make a
whole lot of sense to you too:
- Have a purposeful place to work – none of this working from the kitchen table or in front of the TV stuff!
- Break up work into manageable chunks – no 8 hours marathons at the keyboard, even if your kidneys could stand it!
- Take breaks for healthy snacks and to do something physical: maybe a walk around the block, or a small household task like taking the trash out, shifting laundry, or sweeping a floor.
- Get the heck out of Dodge! Get out on a regular basis to coffee shops, open share office spaces, parks even. If you live where you work, a change of pace can be highly productive and help combat the residual feeling that just because you are home you should be working. (I also find if I go somewhere, choosing a specific task to accomplish there really keeps me focused
- Write it down. Keep lists – whether you use a planner system or not – make a list of what you intend to do, even when you intend to if that helps you, and mark things off as they are completed.I find crossing things off lists very satisfying.
Of course, the great thing about being your own boss and
making the rules is, you have the power to decide when to break them too!
While in my Planner days, my life revolved around paint
brushes and bits of wood of muslin, and various other tactile compounds. Now
almost all my work is on computers. So
when anything goes haywire with them, and entire morning or afternoon’s work
can be undermined. Here is an example .
. .
Tuesday I met with a client in the morning, and confidently
told them I could have the needed revisions we discussed for their project done
by the end of the day. It sounded good,
and I totally believed it was possible.
Hours later, while extracting artwork from a document for this project
and cursing at myself because there was a translation problem with the images,
one of the images accidentally got embedded in my desktop which visually went
haywire with things highlighting and looking totally out of whack. I couldn’t figure out how to fix it. I tried everything I could think of, Googled
some help sites. This little bit of the
unexpected pushed me clean off the train of my productivity, which came to a
screeching halt in a cloud of dark smoke and frustration. Finally, I decided to just back away. I turned off the screens and did something
else. Something where evidence of the
unexpected was not glowing at me, taunting me, whispering, “I bet I wasn’t on
your list, was I honey?”
I had broken work-at-home rules #3 and #4, and the price was
my sense of calm in being able to deal with the inevitable – the
unexpected. When I came back I realized
it was just colors, shapes, and it really wasn’t keeping me from doing what
needed to be done. I would figure it out
eventually. Within an hour, prompted by
a simple comment from a friend, I fixed most all of it with one click – POOF,
it all went away and everything was back to looking normal. I worked late into the evening and managed to
get the promised revisions done without too many more expletive exclamations.
So when did the unexpected become a to-do item on my daily
task list? Have I really lost so much
productivity as I have aged that such things completely disable me? This is not about decrepitude, no. This is about recognizing that my work world
of yesterday is not my work world of today.
I am different, the work is different.
There are many things I can control, and I need to make room for those
things that I cannot. They will emerge
whether I want them to or not. I need to be serious about structuring my day
with the proviso that things can change.
The key is to be balanced between discipline and flexibility: not so
structured that you can't take advantage of shifts and opportunities, not so
formless that you end the day or week wondering what you accomplished.
So I am sticking with my lists. I fall off the wagon every now and again, for
weeks at a time. I kid myself that my
brain has it all under control and I can handle it, only to clamber back on the
list wagon again and feel a sense of relief.
So I am going to keep on making that list, and I think that I will add
“unexpected" to it. It will remind me
that I need to be prepared for felicity or crisis, both of which are an
opportunity in every day.
Oh heck! If nothing
unexpected happens, I can still cross it off my list!
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The ART INSPIRED STORIES Project has been invited back to Proctor ArtsFest for a second year this August. I'll be viewing the works in the Juried Art Show and writing 100w stories on selected entries. 10 of those stories will be read at the Art Show at 2pm on Saturday, August 1st. The artists of those selected works will receive a certificate with the story to keep, and all the stories written will be posted here on my site.
I had such a great time doing this last year, and I am very much looking forward to doing it again.
Check out last year's project HERE
Check out all the amazing coolness that is Proctor ArtsFest HERE
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