Project Plans and timelines - something to be thankful for

Music of the Moment: Crosses - Jose Gonzalez
Time: 11 pm
Location: Home - big beige chair - open windows


Ha.  To all my Project Manager friends out there, I'm sure no one would dispute the absolute necessity of project plans and timelines - especially if you want your project to be on time and on budget. I need them - daily.  I work on them - daily.  And daily I roll up to my computer and hope for the best - the ability of my project to go a little bit with the flow - or perhaps it is me and my ability to "jump in the line" and let everything shake out as it will - handling peaks and valleys as they come at me, my team and my clients.


- Think of it this way - running a project, budget and team is like riding a bike - as long as everything goes according to plan you are as Kosher as some great salt.  In bike terms - like some good tunes and 75* sunshine.  But as someone who has had head to ankle roadburn, broken bones and rocks permanently embedded in my knee from bike accidents, I am what you could call an advocate of falling off your bike.  Those fall-off bike moments have taught me post-fall-from-bike to suck it up and keep walking - and most of all  these moments have taught me that I will never be able to see every curve, dip or rock in the middle of the road.  All I can do is keep riding because I love it.


The funny thing is that the buck does not just stop here.  I totally project manage my life.  Being a go with the flow girl at heart, there is an innate revulsion to my desire to plan trickling into my life - I want to know when, how long, how much, what the expected risks are and the overall duration... so I teeter totter to find a balance between my right and left brain-ness.  I'd prefer in this situation to be ambidextrous - to find a perfect balance of organization, logic, structure with splashes of creativity and delicious random intuition...


For example - I have color coded my closet. hahaha.  However, I have an overflowing laundry basket of clean clothes staring me in the face at this very moment. Oxymoron?  Maybe?  Maybe it's my perfect balance.  ( I'm mostly kidding - I really need to fold my laundry... point still stands :)


My first nice and Godchild was born on Wednesday.  In the true style of my family who is always late, she was 6 days overdue.  My brother-in-law had to take my sister out for dinner for a week straight - each night to somewhere new in order to distract her from the fact that this child was perfectly happy where she was.  Of course she was. Isn't the right moment in our own dear sweet time?  Just like my little Grace - as her name perfectly states: Seemingly effortless beauty or charm of movement, form, or proportion; the freely given, unmerited favor and love of God.


The secret is, I sometimes love the curves in the road - If I had it my way, the project plan of my life would likely look a bit different than what I am currently rocking.  But I love where I am - I am thankful my plan didn't turn out the way I wanted.  It turns out it is not my plan - I don't really have one - goals? - yes, ideas?- yes, passions?- yes, a map? - no, not so much.  But I know I am being lead and that project plan "Go with the flow" is way better than what I've dreamed up - I can already tell. In the meantime, it is my job to be riveted, committed and shaped - even with a couple knee scrapes and embedded rocks -  while navigating through the unexpected.  They have certainly added character to the cake. Whether they are hurdles to leap over, or love stories to fall into, I hope I navigate with grace.