The plan is to have a plan — not a guarantee.
Yesterday I wrote about having a plan — preferably written — and sticking to it. Things go smoother that way.
You control what you can control. You stay on track.
So you probably won’t be surprised at how things went yesterday.
My morning routine is pretty normal: Get up, coffee, talk to the kids while they’re getting ready, look over my to-do list, add a couple things I thought of overnight. Nothing crazy.
For a Monday, it didn’t look like a heavy day.
I even thought I might get ahead a little in the afternoon — knock out a couple of things scheduled for later in the week.
Write down the plan, work the plan, stick to the plan.
And then I left the house.
About five minutes down the road I heard a noise. Checked when I parked. Sure enough: screw in the tire.
So the plan changed. New plan: go to the tire shop.
The good news: the tire was patchable and didn’t cost anything.
And while I was there, they rotated the tires — something I’d been meaning to do for a while but never wrote down.
And since it was never written down… it never happened.
Another reminder: If you want it to happen, write it down.
I still got the important tasks done yesterday. Just not the “get ahead” ones I had in my head when I left the house.
So I’m calling it a successful day.
Plus I got a refresher on something I have to remind myself of often:
You can control what you can control. But something can always show up and blow up your plan.
I’m not always great in the moment when that happens. But I am pretty good at getting back to execution mode quickly.
And that’s usually what matters. I accomplished what I needed to accomplish.
Tomorrow there’s another plan. And I’ll execute that one too.
And if something goes sideways?
I’ll handle it.
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PS — Like I was saying yesterday, negotiation touches every part of your life. If you get better at that, almost everything improves.
If there’s a negotiation book better than Start With No by Jim Camp, I haven’t found it. I read it once a year.
It’s less about tricky tactics and a lot more about managing your own behavior and reactions — which is the real game. Just like what happened above.
If you want to check it out, along with a couple others I recommend, here’s the link:
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