Adjusting Schedule on the Fly
If you have scheduled your day perfectly and are certain you have allowed
yourself just enough time to get everything done, something always comes
up to change that. You will encounter an emergency of some sort. Or
an old friend to whom you have not spoken in years. If you are at home,
the dishwasher will suddenly overflow. It is the Murphy’s Law
variation for time management. If something can mess up your schedule,
it will, it always happens that way.
And these situations can be incredibly frustrating. You have gone through
the time and effort to devise a good organizational system and have
coupled that awesome plan with real dedication. You have gone beyond
learning a system and have actually implemented it. This should your
moment of glory--your opportunity to reach new heights of productivity.
Instead, you find yourself sitting in a veterinarian’s office
with your sick cat or shuffling through stacks of CD-ROMs after a mysterious
software crash.
The temptation at that moment is to chuck the plan completely and to just go
back to being Mr. or Ms. Disorganized. At least when you did not have a plan,
nothing could ruin your plan. It is easy to start thinking of your strategies
as nothing but wasted effort when events seem to conspire against you.
There are decisive moments in any endeavor, and the moment of truth for those
involved with time management is when they realize some external force has taken
their carefully planned activity list, wadded it up and tossed it aside. This
is the point at which one either surrenders or learns to adjust his or her schedule
on the fly.
Making quick adjustments can be challenging but it is possible. The first step
is to conduct damage control. If unforeseen circumstances will push you off
your schedule, your first thought must be directed toward those who will be
adversely impacted by delay. Handle them first. Explain the situation and keep
them in the loop.
That may not apply in all cases. If no one else is relying upon you to maintain
your schedule, you may immediately begin the second step in the process. This
involves dumping non-essential tasks down your list and even into subsequent
days, if necessary. If this frees up enough time, you can stop there.
If things are still far too tight, you will have to start looking at your top
priorities and decide which ones are truly the most important. These will receive
the quickest treatment. Secondary tasks will be relegated to an “optional”
status and will be reset for the subsequent day.
In the end, unforeseen challenges will mess up your schedule. That is unavoidable.
When your perfect ten-hour day is cut down to five hours, you will need
either to work twice as fast or compromise your schedule. It can certainly
be a challenge, but it is a challenge you can meet. Adjusting your schedule
on the fly is probably the last thing you wanted to do when you sat down
to start your day, but life’s unpredictability forces even the most
strict time managers to develop a high level of flexibility.
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