“Death, taxes and childbirth! There’s never any convenient time for any of them.” Gone With the Wind.
I haven’t experienced death (yet) or childbirth (won’t happen), but like all of us, I have experienced taxes. Every year we receive a bright orange announcement in January from our accountant, setting an appointment date and reminding us of all the stuff we need to bring. The last line always says: “Let us know if this time is not convenient for you. Otherwise, we will see you then.”
I’m with Scarlett O’Hara: no time is convenient to talk about taxes. Every year I’m shuffling through forms and receipts the night before our appointment, even though I’ve known about it for months and have a folder in my filing cabinet earmarked for “Current Year’s Taxes”. And every year, our accountant asks us if we have purchased any new office equipment or installed any energy-saving devices in our house—none of which I have kept track of.
Still, it helps to have a date after which I know I won’t need to worry about taxes for another few months–which brings me to the topic for this post: Planning. Planning is about determining how you’re going to get to a goal, whether it be for a project at work or for a personal goal, like achieving a healthier lifestyle or preparing for life’s predictable events—like death, taxes, and childbirth! (OK, so maybe death is not a goal, but planning for how your worldly goods will be distributed after you’re gone is.)
Planning for projects at work is made easier by the many tools we have available to us at DFCI through the Project Management Methodology website. Creating and maintaining the documents that are required for a project is like setting up dominoes in an intricate pattern, anticipating the satisfaction I will experience when I knock over the first one. An hour or two spent on a project management planning document is time well spent because this usually saves me the heartache of having to stop in the middle, pick up the pieces, and start all over again, due to questions I didn’t ask and assumptions I didn’t double-check up front.
Planning for the personal stuff hasn’t been as easy for me. There’s never a convenient time to give up caffeine, start a new exercise routine, or even go on vacation. All of these things require planning.
For example, my doctor said I should consider giving up coffee (“taking a break for an undetermined amount of time, then thinking of the occasional coffee as a treat” is the way he put it). I concluded that he obviously didn’t understand the mind of a true coffee lover, but I knew he was right. So after a 40+ year love affair with my favorite beverage, I just quit cold turkey. After the first day or two of blinding headaches, I realized I probably could have saved myself some suffering by tapering off over a few days, replacing the caffeinated drinks gradually with different coffee “substitutes” until I was caffeine-free (but still grieving, of course).
I ran a 5K a couple of years ago at my college reunion with no training, just to save face with my friends—and could barely walk for two days afterward! Now I’m planning to do one of those “Couch Potato to 5K” programs—a much better way to achieve my fitness goal.
Gretchen Rubin, in “The Happiness Project”, talks about setting “monthly happiness goals”. Who would think about setting goals for being happy? But that is pretty much why planning is important. If I don’t plan my vacations now, the good places I like to stay will all be taken and plane fares will be astronomically expensive. And how can I be happy knowing I could have had twice the money to spend if I hadn’t spent so much on plane tickets?
So I guess I’d better grab one of those cottages today—even though now is not a convenient time to call. Why do I always think of these things when I’m at work?