You leave your house to buy groceries before your dinner plans. “But wait,” your brain says, “There’s more than enough time for you to jog over to your favorite coffee shop and write.”

You haven’t been in a long time, so you pack your laptop and fill up your water bottle, and you head out to buy your groceries. But of course, you’re downtown, it’s midtown, and the trains are running on a weekend schedule, so it takes much longer than you expect. 

The weekend schedule train also diverts you back home—where you can put the groceries down, but with only time for a brief break before you need to head out to your dinner.

There are many different responses you could have. In my case, this exact thing happened to me before I sat down to—hurriedly—write this at home, and I obviously wish I just left my bag at home.

Then again, maybe it’s worth re-thinking: if it went according to plan, then the time spent at the coffee shop would’ve been worth it. You were prepared, but things didn’t go according to plan, so you adapted. That’s too bad, but nothing to be ashamed of either.

P.S., Next time, I will leave my bags at home and bring a pocket notepad instead.

P.P.S., A lot of work feels like this. Management is the art of foreseeing unpredictable things and preparing accordingly, and learning from previous experiences.