Another year has flown by and we find ourselves leaving 2025 and entering 2026. I hope that last year met your expectations and you look back with satisfaction on your accomplishments.
But now is the season to think of the year ahead….your resolutions….your aspirations….your goals. If you’re a planner, you’ve probably already mapped out 2026 to guide your way. Even if planning isn’t your style, you’ve probably thought about what you want to accomplish in some fashion.
I want to take a moment to talk about how to plan for the unplannable. Many people just finished a year punctuated by unexpected activities. If you’re not prepared, you can spend considerable time stumbling as you figure out how to manage them.
We tend to underestimate how much time and energy these unexpected activities take. Often when we deal with them, we try to plow forward, business as usual, not paying attention to how much bandwidth the unplanned sucks up.
Part of this is because we think that the interrupting activity is temporary and will be gone before we know it.
Or not.
If you start the year conscious of planning for the unplannable, you will be alert to what you need to do when it arises.
My recommendation is to accept the unplanned event/activity/obstacle for what it is and to estimate how much time it will take to resolve. Then double that amount, because we tend to underestimate it.
Decide what you’re willing to forego to fit it in, and then do your best. Some interruptions will be short-term, others longer. What you don’t want to do is think that you can forge ahead business as usual, because you’ll be squeezed somewhere. Before you know it, life will spin out of control.
When you give your best guestimate of how you’ll reallocate your commitments, you’ll be in a much better position to be in control rather than be controlled.
Unplanned events can easily be exciting, joyous, and stimulating as much as they can be depressing, sad, and enervating. Accept them for what they are, and before you know it, you’ll be managing your activities as well as you ever did.
I wish you the best for a happy, healthy and prosperous New Year!
“Cheers to a new year and another chance for us to get it right.”
– Oprah Winfrey
Header image by Anna Shvets/Pexels.
