Being surprised when something comes up is not a good strategy.
Better might be to expect surprises and set aside a designated time each day or week or whenever—when the things that inevitably come up can be addressed.
- This works for work: Maybe you designate one hour each week for pop-up tasks and surprise assignments.
- This works for relationships: Maybe you designate 30 minutes after dinner each night to touch base and address daily challenges, buds that need to be nipped, and important topics that could easily get swept under the busyness rug otherwise.
- This works for chores: Maybe you designate one weekend each month to a different house maintenance category. (e.g. Week 1: Deep cleaning; Week 2: Fixes & Repairs; Week 3: Landscaping; Week 4: Other).
The difficulty with not having these preemptive pockets is that each surprise task that comes up becomes a stressor. Not just because of the additional problem(s) they present, but because of the strain on the schedule they represent, too. Now, you have to find more time when you already didn’t have enough time to do this thing when you already have too many other things to do…
But, if you have preemptive pockets of time set aside for the inevitable daily surprises, then the problems get mitigated almost as fast as they’re created or recognized. And suddenly, surprises won’t shake your day how they used to.
Eventually, your biggest surprises every week won’t be the annoying ones (because those are planned for and expected)—but will be the times if/when you enter your preemptive space and nothing needs to be addressed at all.
…And what a pleasant surprise that’ll be instead.