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As a single working mother, my plans shift as quickly as the 2016 temperatures in New Jersey.
At any given moment, I have schedules to keep for at least three different people, and being a woman of efficiency and time management, my brain never seems to stop planning.
Yesterday, while driving the kid to music lessons, I remembered that I had to run into my office for a quick errand. I had the plan, the route, the time needed and the time leftover mapped out neatly in my head.
Until…
My brain suddenly felt like the train arrival/departure board at New York Penn Station.
“It’s Saturday,” I realized, “Traffic is going to be different. And isn’t Bangs Avenue still under construction? What are the chances I can park right in front of my office?”
Flip. Flip. Flip.
The different plans start flipping through all of the scenarios until finally settling on one.
What’s a day without a little shuffling after all?
Product or strategy not working the way we want it to? The mental sign boards flip feverishly as we look for what else is out there (or more importantly, what’s not out there) to develop a new plan.
Messaging not resonating? Flip. Flip. Flip. We go through our networks, our research and new strategies until we hit the right people with just the right message.
A day of bad computer Karma? (C’mon, who here can’t relate?) The brain quickly shuffles through options to get things back up and running as soon as possible and ensures that we are still able to hit deadlines.
Like Penn Station, there are many destinations and many ways to get there – some routes are more direct than others. Sometimes we even go in the wrong direction.
It’s easy to get overwhelmed by all the choices and changes that need to be made on any given day. But stop and take a breath. The boards do eventually stop flipping and the direction will be revealed.
In the meantime (and in the most modern terms), we’re simply, “Recalculating.”