Your day is not going to go as planned.
Ever.
And that’s ok. Really, it’s ok.
In fact, it would probably be bad if it did go as planned. You don’t make a plan for the day with the expectation that you will follow it by rote and then go to bed. Your plan is not an iPhone app that you bought from someone else, where you have to contact the developer if there are bugs. It’s one that you built yourself.
Your plan is your first pass at writing the app, but then you get to be a programmer throughout the day. You get to “debug” your plan as you go.
You also get to add “features” to the program for your day. Features you may not have known you could possibly put in there.
Yesterday, I had a plan for the day. It included taking my wife to the hospital for surgery, bringing her home midday when it was done, and taking the kids to the dentist after school.
But recovery from the surgery took longer than we thought it would. So, the plans had to change. I stayed at the hospital most of the day, got no work done, and the dentist appointments were cancelled.
And that’s all ok. My plan had some bugs in it. Once they became obvious, I treated the plan like a programmer treats the app he made, not like a user would. I dug in, rearranged some things, postponed others, and moved on.
I also found a new feature I could add to my day that I wouldn’t have been able to otherwise: while waiting at the hospital, I caught up on some episodes of Bosch that I had downloaded to my phone.
Simple bug, simple feature. Planning your day is great, but be ready to adjust as the realities of life come.