Life happens!

When I first began writing this blog, I thought I could easily write an entry each week. This overzealous thinking was that of a young woman with too much time on her hands. Yes, I was working a full-time job. Yes, I was involved in leadership positions in various nursing organizations. Yes, I traveled whenever and wherever possible. But I still had lots of time to do other things, and I didn’t see how writing 500-1,000 words per week would weigh me down.

Enter my first year as a PhD student. If you haven’t noticed yet, this is my first blog entry since April. When I began writing this blog, I had no intentions of ever taking that much time off from writing, but life happened.

One of the biggest mistakes I have made on my leadership journey is packing my schedule too tightly. I used to think that if I was sitting around doing nothing, I was wasting my time. I felt as though I needed to be doing something “productive” every minute of every day. I never took into consideration the fact that unforeseen circumstances present themselves at the most inopportune times. I never thought about the possibility of having to cancel prescheduled activities because of a situation that had to be dealt with immediately, or worse, doing those prescheduled things halfheartedly because my mind needed and wanted to be elsewhere.

In the months between my last blog entry and this one, I have learned to lighten the schedule a bit and leave room for those surprise emergencies that inevitably pop up. Sick parents or children, relationship issues, personal illnesses, loss of loved ones, financial crunches—all these things happen, and there is no way to plan for them. It is now clear to me that a good leader will allow his or her schedule to be flexible enough to handle these things, in addition to commitments already made. While we can never predict life’s unfortunate circumstances, we can be better prepared to handle them without fear of dropping the ball in every other area of our lives.

“Don’t put off for tomorrow what you can do today.” Good advice! Whether our schedules are jampacked or wide open, it is always best to complete the tasks at hand as soon as possible. When the storms of life come raging at us, we may not have the time, energy or resources to complete the most simple of tasks. We may need to direct all of our attention to the storm and brace ourselves until it passes. Leaving time for unanticipated life events can make those trying times a little less stressful.

If my time away from this blog has taught me nothing else, it has taught me to leave room for the unexpected so that, when it arrives, I will not be in complete disarray. Maybe what I have learned from my misstep will prevent you from making the same mistake when planning your schedule.

For Reflections on Nursing Leadership (RNL), published for the Honor Society of Nursing, Sigma Theta Tau International.