I don’t know about you, but my business doesn’t seem to be nearly as organized as I’d like.

I have stuff coming at me from all directions all the time, and things that I have a plan for … change anyway.

It feels like I’m just making it up as I go along. And, in fact, that’s a lot of what’s happening.

I talked a while ago about making things into processes, so this is the alternate viewpoint. It turns out that there are a lot of things which can be made up on the fly. That’s what experience is for, and common sense.

As a very realtime example: I had a contractor recently who created a disruption in a major project I’m working on. In this case, I had to spend some time gathering data and assessing the damage.

But more important, in cases like this I’ve learned not to respond too quickly. I slept on it, and took time to think through all the alternatives. I spent the weekend looking at it from different angles.

You see, it’s not just about the one incident. It’s also about maintaining good relationships with this company, minimizing damage, and achieving the overall goal of the project.

Another example: I got a message from the doctor today about some tests which hadn’t been done, but I was confused because I thought things had been taken care of. This is something which can be handled pretty easily, by sending messages and leaving voicemails.

After doing that, all I need to do is to remember to follow up in a few days if I don’t get replies. So even though it’s annoying, it’s not worth getting anxious about. It’ll get solved soon enough.

Yes, unexpected things are annoying. They cause rework and mess up plans. But the important thing is to distinguish the small things from those where thoughtful deliberation is best.

And then we just do the best we can. What else would we do?