Best laid plans

I hated planning; thinking ahead, organizing….the works

Life being what it is, tried to teach me all about it, giving me no option but to buckle up and change gears.

Now I work on a calendar on which most work appointments are (thankfully) maintained to some degree by Microsoft Outlook.

I keep adding other meetings, personal reminders (to book gas cylinders, doctor’s appointments, picking up stuff for school projects, getting laundry done, filling petrol, submitting bills, buying gifts for birthdays the kids have to attend etc) to that.

And yes, once the school calendars are out, I superimpose those to my existing one so that I also get the reminders for school competitions and holidays, unit tests, parents’ days, sports days etc.

Since this calendar doesn’t work when I am offline-I add all the important ones to my phone too-so that every driving, shopping, talking, walking, moment is organized to the bar of the T.

I’ve also organized my grocery shopping through a master list, from which I need to strike out the items I don’t need, and generate the list for any month.

Enough to win me a nomination for Ms. Efficiency? Probably.

Had it not been for the times, I left the phone in the car and missed the reminder for calling my college room-mate on her birthday or picking up stuff from the dry cleaners (or the umpteen times I leave my phone charger at office and leave the battery to whimper out) .

Or the times I’ve pulled up at a petrol pumps and realized that I’d left my credit card at home.

Or, the times when I’ve received emergency calls from school/daycare and raced out of meetings, training sessions, client calls….whatever.

Even the times when I’ve got hold of an interesting read and let go off everything else.

And the last few times when I forgot to print the programmed grocery lists and ended up with four bottles of toilet cleaner, three packets of turmeric and an empty sugar canister.

Well, there is only so much planning can do!