People or Punctuality?

Yep.

If you've been following this blog recently, you already know I was at a conference last week. When I packed for the conference, my bags were logically organized. I had the whole house to myself and hours to get my act together. There was no excuse for not being logically organized.

Fast forward a day or so. Life in a hotel room with limited possessions along for the ride can make it easy to stay organized. When it was time to go home, however, "I know I put it somewhere" -- which is not even my organizational style! -- kicked into gear.

It all began on Wednesday night. With the bounty I'd gained at the conference, I knew I needed to take my first load to the car that night instead of waiting until checkout the next day, but I still needed almost everything I'd packed for the last day at the conference. But, with additional goodies to bring home, every bag became fair game.

I started with the sturdy shopping bag that held my conference swag -- that was a bonus bag -- one I hadn't had when I arrived. I filled that with books and things I wouldn't need on Thursday, and took it to the car, where I grabbed one of the reusable shopping bags that lives in my trunk for any other excess stuff and declared an organizational victory.

Round 1.

That evening, I planned out my Thursday -- the sessions I wanted to attend, the one I was presenting, the lunch I'd pre-planned. On paper, it all looked good.

You know where this is going.

Thursday morning, I ran into technical difficulties (some of my own creation) in setting up for my workshop, but my teacher training kicked in, I launched Plan B and had a lot of fun. After the session, a few folks wanted to talk to me. Then someone wanted to introduce me to someone else. After several enjoyable and productive conversations, I headed back to my room to pack up the rest of my stuff and check out of the hotel.

Let's just say it wasn't as simple as I'd anticipated. Long story short, I was late to meet my lunch companions.

Great professionalism, right? Perfect way to demonstrate my stellar time management skills?

Fortunately, my lunch companions were gracious and much more unruffled than I. Though a part of me fretted that the day would continue to be a succession of mishaps, that wasn't the case at all. My day turned out to be quite nice, in fact, with some of the unexpected encounters being among the nicest.

Sometimes, our best-laid plans turn out to be the blueprint for the day. Other times, our days bear very little resemblance to the plans we laid out so carefully. All day, every day, we make decisions about which interruptions to accept and which to refuse. I have a really hard time not engaging with someone who sincerely wants to engage with me, and it gets me into trouble when it comes to keeping to a schedule. Most of the time, I'm fortunate, as I was at the conference. For better or for worse, having forgiving friends and colleagues only serves to cement a habit that's great for my relationships but bad for my punctuality.

In retrospect, the whole conference turned out to be very different than I'd envisioned. Before I left for the event, I printed out the schedule and highlighted the sessions I wanted to attend. I was prepared. Once there, I made it to some of those sessions, but missed others because I got lost in conversation, opted for an impromptu lunch with a colleague or got caught up in meandering around the vendor booths. Still, it was time well spent and I came away happy about the connections I made, and the opportunity to meet in person folks who'd previously been just names on a social media feed. I got to most of the sessions I really wanted to attend and, despite doing serious damage to my carefully laid-out agenda, benefited greatly from my experience.

Annca via Pixabay

I know that punctuality for social engagements is something I need to work on (I am rarely late for professional obligations), but I also believe that I am where I'm supposed to be. I'm not yet sure how to reconcile those two things but, in the meantime, I'm grateful for the forgiveness of friends who understand that sometimes I'm on Lisa time.

How about you? Are you more stick to the schedule or go with the flow?