On Planning and Doing

 

We make plans.  Things happen and the plans have to change.  That happened to me this evening, I was all set to work on grading a specific class.  I got an email from a student that took me down a rabbit hole changing the course of my evening.

Some of us are quite meticulous in planning and equally meticulous, even obsessed, with the execution thereof.  The vast majority of us, fall short in the meticulous and obsessed execution parts. 

All of us are subject to “things popping up” and disrupting our plans such as what happened to me this evening.  Some of these things that pop-up could divert us for a few minutes to a few hours.  There are also major things, let’s call them random shocks that thankfully occur much less frequently.  These random shocks could divert us for days, weeks, months, years, and, perhaps, forever.

The random shocks can be life changing like needing immediate surgery that requires a long recovery time.  It could involve being offered a new and better job.  Natural disasters and wars are random shocks as are winning a multimillion-dollar lottery prize.  These kinds of random shocks, positive or negative, are hard to predict and therefore hard and costly to proactively plan around with any effectiveness.

The little pop-ups are minor things such as temporary tasks that have to be taken care of immediately.  It could be a phone call you have been waiting for.  It might be your boss needing something for his boss that diverts you from your plan for a few hours.  It could be someone dropping by and pleasantly taking up your afternoon.  It could be catching the flu.  There is a randomness to the occurrence of these little pop-ups but they happen more frequently. 

There seems to be two schools of thought in this regard.  Both require a plan.  What tasks have to be done today or this week, how long do we believe they will take, and prioritize them.  A lot of people can do this effectively. 

Things get interesting in the actual getting to, doing, and, of course, finishing the tasks.  The meticulous planners and doers want to start immediately on the high priority tasks and work their way down the list.  They know that random little pop-ups will occur and delay them but by starting early, dang it, they are sure to meet the real or self-imposed deadlines. 

On the other extreme is the just-in-time crowd, also known as the procrastinators.  This category of folks, of which I might be a member, do the opposite of the meticulous proactive crowd.  The just-in-timers have a knack for figuring out, “when is the last possible moment I can start this task and work at a frenetic pace to still get it done on time.”  The prioritization is simple.  What is the most pressing task with the most pressing deadline? “Hey, let’s do that.”

The problem with this delayed, latest possible time something can be started, approach is that the little pop-ups are like big disruptive random shocks.  They have to be ignored, handling quickly and deftly, or something has to give.  What gives is the trade-off between making the  deadline or sleeping.  “Fire up the Keurig, were gonna be here for a while.”

This is by no means a scientific study and because it isn’t, I will, naturally, be making even more sweeping generalizations based on my view of how things work.  The meticulous folks are the best at managing longer term, you know, strategic kinds of projects.  The just-in-timers are the better fire fighters.  They are the so-called multi-taskers who struggle with longer term tasks that require months and years to achieve.  

The just-in-timers can jump in help organize things as in the early days of the Covid-19 pandemic.  They can develop quick plans to organize, respond, and get things going.  As the new reality, again using the Covid-19 pandemic, settles into the new normal, the just-in-timers lose their edge and the meticulous planners and doers quickly take the reins from the just-in-timers.

This distinction is not black and white.  There is, of course, a lot of gray in the continuum between just-in-timers and the meticulous early starters.   It is good to know where you are on the continuum.  Then, you can be aware of and leverage your strengths and work on strategies to mitigate your weaknesses.  It all sounds so clear and easy… I’ll start tomorrow.