Planning, reactive not proactive

How do you plan your goals?

Planning goals, now there is a conundrum if ever I heard one. If I really want / require / need something then there is a modicum of thought and planning that goes into it, otherwise most of my goals are on the fly as they say, whimsical to many and probably with no planning at all.

Things like holidays and breaks away are the wife’s domain and she does that most competently, I just pass some money her way when she needs it, so I don’t really get involved there.

Work

Personal goals for me are pretty much medium to long term and I don’t go over the top in achieving them according to any time scale. If they occur then that’s good, if not I’m not really that bothered. I have nothing planned that’s life changing or affirming, to be honest, I’m quite happy with my lot.

The only goal I’m really spending some time in planning is my pending retirement. It’s been on the cards for a couple of years now and will probably be a few more years yet, unless Lady Luck intervenes and allows me to close that door and enter through a new one any time soon. But even here I have no time scale, it will happen when it happens.

I guess this is why I am not a planner for my company as timelines and schedules are not really my thing as they say.

Things such as days out are always off the cuff, last minute, and here I am pretty good at putting together a last minute schedule. This is something I am good at, and ties in with my work. At work I’m always responding to issues that occur on the rail network and have to have a plan in place out of reactive necessity, not really having the pleasure of being able to draft a plan in advance of such a set of events.

Failed trains

That’s where i can excel, I guess that’s why I’ve been in this role for the last 25+ years, we have planners for the proactive stuff and I’m there for the reactive stuff, applying the big Elastoplast if you like. However, you always learn from these incidents and therefore fine tune activities accordingly, so if they ever occur again you can apply a different sticking plaster if you like. You learn and adapt, reactive response allows you to do that, you are not working to someone else’s plan, a plan that is just put together to satisfy auditors, and has not even been prepared by an experienced individual in the first place. Railway management is good at doing this, incompetence reigns supreme!

So in a nutshell my goals are pretty much reactive and get put into place as they occur. This is the same in my life outside of work and I guess this is a result of how I am at work. It can’t be all that bad as it seems to work well with me across all areas of my life.

So I’m not going to change just now, am I?

Here’s to that impending retirement, roll on I say.

Have a superb day.

Mañana man

If there was a biography about you, what would the title be?

Mañana man

Procrastination, thats me to a tee, or should i really say it used to be. I don’t know, ill tell you what, ask me tomorrow.

That’s me that is 👆

I used to always work in the future, always putting off until tomorrow something that could be done today. Even my bosses knew that i could be relied on to do a job, they just didn’t know when though.

They tried getting me to do daily to do lists, this worked for a while until i turned them into daily tomorrow lists. They gave up in the end and just subtracted 24 hrs off my weekly schedule to make it look like i was being productive on a daily basis. It made them feel as if they’d achieved something. Losers.

It’s probably why i loved visiting our friends in Cyprus so much. The procrastination levels there are through the roof and i thought i fitted in well. My mate would tell me he had a Plumber coming Wednesday, however the key thing he omitted to find out was just on what Wednesday they would be arriving! The levels of procrastination were skill level 2000, these guys were ultra professional.

Over time i have gotten better, but do you know what? It’s never really caused any issues and on many occasions my putting off doing things has fitted in extremely well when there have been changes made to plans along the way…I hadn’t wasted any time, unlike others.

And as for my wife and her numerous 6 monthly reminders..

Ill do it tomorrow

I always tell her it will be done tomorrow. And we all know that never comes.

Mañana man

Happy Valentine’s Day to you all ❤️

Mañana

What have you been putting off doing? Why?

I’m one of those people who pretty much procrastinates at everything, I love the old Spanish saying of “Mañana” but then tomorrow arrives and now you have a whole stack of stuff to do.

So the thing I have been putting off doing is procrastination, but I’ve even been putting that off until tomorrow. Not good.

So I need to stop doing that now!

However as I’m busy today I’ll maybe look into that tomorrow.

See… I can’t win can I 😂

Here’s until tomorrow, take care.

Thoughts 10/4/24

Describe one positive change you have made in your life.

When sitting here I find it very hard to actually pinpoint a positive change I’ve made in my life. I’m sure I have made many however I find it difficult to pinpoint one in particular.

I guess if I had to choose one positive change, I would say that it would have to be that of not worrying, but that would be lying because I do worry I worry continually, it’s natural we all worry.

What I really mean is that I try not to worry about small stuff as that’s always been an issue with me. I let the smallest thing worry me I wish I could adopt the attitude of mañana just like the Spanish. Don’t worry about it until later. It’s a wonderful attitude in my eyes.

I struggle with it and it’s a constant battle, to not worry, it’s the way I’ve always been. It’s the way I’ll always be. I can only try to worry less.

This isn’t sounding very positive is it? So I guess I will just have to stop there to be totally honest. I can’t put my finger on one thing that I’ve been positive with change wise in my life.

I have failed terribly in today’s “Thoughts” I will have to try harder in the future.

That’s sad, it really is.

Happy day everyone

Thoughts 30/3/24

If you could have something named after you, what would it be?

Straight to the point I’d like to have a statue of me named “Procrastination”

Its what I’m good at you know “Mañana” as they say in the Spanish language. It’s never really got me in to too much trouble, in some cases I do believe some people have appreciated the fact I don’t always run into problems. I tend to sit back and contemplate an outcome and then work on it to make sure the outcome is acceptable to all. It’s just I might take 24 hrs or so to do it.

Yes there are situations that require immediate attention, but I’m really at my best when I can have some time to think about it.

Don’t pester and I’ll get it done….someday 😂

Have a lovely Easter. Stay safe.