Just Another Crazy Month
Presented On: 22/04/2021
Planning and Implementing
Question. Be honest with me everybody ... Raise your hand IF, you have left things for the last minute? You know when the assignment was due but you put it off until the last minute. How many of you did this? Come on be honest people. Now counterpoint. Raise your hand IF you are the opposite. If you are the person who works beforehand, leaving nothing for the last possible minute and can sit back relax and watch the world ... I mean your colleagues burn?
Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, Apache helicopters and all those unidentifiable genders ... why why why? Why Patricia WHY? Why do you leave things for the last damn minute? Cutting it so close like James Bond diffusing a bomb or like Wil-E-Coyote realizing he is standing on air and not the edge of the cliff. What in God’s name do you gain from waiting till the last minute? Extra sleep? The feeling of being a bad boy or girl? Or do you just like sweating bullets and sleepless nights? Because if you do, call CareWays and speak to a therapist right now, because there is something wrong with you.
Seriously, I can’t understand the logic behind not being proactive and working ahead of time. Maybe it has to do with that way I was raised. Or my OCPD. Or maybe ... just maybe ... I don’t like the idea of being pressured into doing things in the last minute, although ironically I work well under pressure. Look we’re all consultants, last minute meetings, pushing for deadlines it comes with the territory. But let me plead my case for working ahead of time.
The last month and a half, my life has been absolute chaos. Between starting an MBA, writing my first assignment, completing project work, attending lectures, keeping up with my blog, writing Toastmaster speeches, gaming, and planning get togethers for the team at work, dealing with birthdays and family and life, my life seems to be a like proverbial rollercoaster of Eminem rapping Godzilla, and I feel like I went from adulting to standing still wondering what the hell am I doing right now. Oh, and if anyone is even thinking why not just stop gaming, run ... and keep running. Because if I ever find you I will ... wait hold on... Ok, for legal reasons my lawyers have advised me that I should not complete this statement. But nevertheless, back to the Godzilla spoken roller coaster, for a person who plans and manages his time so well, even I struggled.
But even so, if things got crazy, I stuck to the plan and kept my head down and pushed on. You see having that plan, or the rough idea of the plan in my head allowed me to do everything and in a timely manner. See, you last minute workers, even with a crazy schedule, planning helps. Working ahead of time helps. I may not be sleeping right now, but it still helps! No plan is concrete, it’s always gonna change, but having some sort of structure and guidance made my life 10 times easier. Made my eyes 50 times darker and my immune system wondering if that’s a COVID cough or I’m just a sleep deprived moron who’s been eating junk food, drinking caffeine and staring at 3 screens at any given point in time.
Planning works people. That’s my point. Look, ever changing plans, tight deadlines and pressures of life are things we have to deal with one way or the other. That’s never gonna change. But knowing that I can cross off something small on my task list and see some sort of progress to all my deadlines is the little piece of motivation I need. So, on my insane list, I’ve sorted out all the logistics for the team get-together. Check! I’ve got my entire assignment on paper, and all that is needed is typing it out and refining, so that’s almost done. Check! Toastmaster speech written, and currently being said, so double check! Posting this speech onto my blog, almost checked! And sleep .... HA! Ah well you win some and you lose some I guess. Truthfully, I did all of this without putting any of this planning on paper. Can you believe it? I mean I had 5 different voices inside my head telling me what to do all the time, and even now they won’t shut up. But hey, I got the job done.
So, for all you last minute, buzzer shooting, nutjobs who like to leave it all for the last few seconds. Don’t do that. Trust me, making the simplest of plans, even with rough timing and just a general structure, you’ve already taken 2 steps ahead. Now you may not be there yet, but you will be further than you were yesterday. But that doesn’t mean do everything in your head. Put pen to paper, foot to pedal, other anecdotal comparisons to this.
We all know nothing comes easy in life, if you want something you gotta put the work in. And hard work, it doesn’t go unrecognized, the rewards may not come immediately, but they will come, in forms you may not even think it. And when the last task is done, and you feel the weight of the world lifting off your shoulders, and you see the sun rising in the horizon. You can finally realize you stayed up all night working again, because you left everything for the last minute again, giving up sleep and all because you didn’t want to plan. Now while all of you get bags under the eyes, I’m going to game, and then sleep, because at least my sleep deprivation is because I was doing something I wanted to. So, thank you and goodnight!