Resilient Scheduling
Planning for the unplanned
Last Saturday was a rare day in my work life. I completed everything on my daily to-do list and had time to start on other waiting projects.
Perhaps you think a productivity coach should be able to complete her daily to-dos every day. Shouldn’t someone who writes and teaches about these issues be able to estimate how much time a project will take and schedule it, unerringly?
Nope. Perfection is never the Messy Desk goal. Perfectionism is a rigid slave-driver; I aim for maximum flexibility and minimum wasted effort.
Good time management means planning a resilient schedule, not a perfect one. -Linda Vanderkam
Linda Vanderkam wrote in Forge, “The key to an effective weekly calendar is pessimism.” Her solution — scheduling a back-up slot for every activity.
The amount of time in your life isn’t flexible. Vanderkam’s idea is that you create a resilient weekly schedule by adding redundant time slots for valued activities. I would suggest that you make your schedule even more resilient when you schedule ample buffer time and have a menu of activities to fill in when those buffers are successful.
