Our water heater sprung a leak, and 3 rooms went from dry to soaked in about 2 hours. We spent a morning moving everything out of the wet rooms and vacuuming up water with the shop vac (just us two oldies—everyone else was gone for the day). Appreciated the fast response from our favorite plumber and carpet guy. By afternoon, we had a new water heater, old one removed, and fans and a dehumidifier going. Three days later, we had Labor Day holiday—which we devoted to labor.

This morning, we got up to a bedroom that has been deep-cleaned and put back together in a more spacious arrangement, a bathroom that also benefitted from cleaning all the hard-to-get-at areas, and a storage room that has been sorted and reorganized.

All these things needed to be done—sometime soon. They were on the list. And somehow they remained on the list, never moving up to “do it today.” Until the leak. Now, mission accomplished.

• Knowing house-guests will be coming at a specific date and time.
• Taxes are due on April 15, and you so not get the grace of an extension.
• Your client’s order must be delivered at a certain time.
• You own animals, and they need to be cared for on a regular schedule, every day.
• You are in charge of making the meals in your household.
• You have a writing project due in six months, so you schedule how much time you need to put in each week to make that happen.
• Your research paper is due tomorrow, and you didn’t work ahead. Even an all-nighter won’t let you get it in on time.

What motivates you to kick the starter, to put your shoulder to the wheel, or to jump in the deep end of the pool?

I found out at age 18 that I no longer wanted to “fly by the seat of my pants.” I had to learn how to give myself deadlines, which required setting goals and developing schedules. I had to develop patterns and habits that help me get the “panic-monkey” off of my back by working and thinking ahead. And it works for most things, but, I must admit that there are a few areas in which I have never been able to consistently overcome my strong procrastination capacity.

Planning ahead has become my safety net, my preferred modus operandi, but there are drawbacks. It’s easy to become rigid in these practices and to insist that others in your household do things “your way.” What came as a much needed relief from stress for me, might not feel the same way to another. Maybe, they need and want the adrenalin released with last-minute working. And, we need to learn to co-exist. We need to respect each other’s ways of working.

Are you a plan-ahead kind of worker or a “let’s see what today brings” sort? What gets you going?