When I write the monthly review newsletter I try to say something specific about that particular month. This is complicated by the international audience for my newsletter. There are different term dates, different holidays, and different weather. I’ve got newsletter subscribers at all stages of career, and at different stages of life. So I talk about some of the typical issues. (The prompts are standard. I just highlight some things not to forget and try to be encouraging.) In February 2020, I realised that there were a lot of things that might have affected their plans.

February is a short month so one should have slightly lower expectations. Canadian academics usually have a reading week in February which will make it different from other months. Anyone based in the UK who has school aged children will have had to deal with school half-term, which probably didn’t fit well with work responsibilities and disrupted normal routines, even if it’s good for the kids to get that break.

Those things you can plan for. As long as you are aware at the beginning of the month, you can make decisions and plans that account for those things.

February 2020 also had some severe weather events in several places. Newfoundland lost a whole week to an epic snowstorm and the subsequent clear up. The UK had named storms (high wind and rain) two weekends in a row with serious flooding in many places. After months of horrific bushfires, Australia was also dealing with torrential rain and flooding right when a new academic year was starting.

Then there were the labour disputes. UK academics were in a strike position with planned strike days for February and March if negotiations didn’t progress. Ontario school teachers are represented by several unions all of which started taking strike action which look likely to continue for quite a while affecting anyone with school age children. Protests in solidarity with the Wet’suwet’en were creating transport disruptions across Canada.

On top of that February is a prime time for flu, colds, and so on, even if the corona virus outbreak didn’t affect you (yet).

Planning sets a course

When reviewing your activities and accomplishments you should never judge them against what you planned. The purpose of the plan was to inspire action and help you ensure that the important things get attention.

If your last month contained any of the things listed above, you need to judge your accomplishments accordingly. If it included any of the unpredictable things, you not only want to lower your expectations for what you accomplished, but perhaps also focus on how you dealt with the disruption.

If you are in a situation where you may be affected by ongoing labour disputes, weather patterns, and so on, you might want to take that into account in your plan. This isn’t quite the same as planning for a Reading Week/Spring Break/Easter Break because there is some uncertainty about whether it will happen. And it’s probably more than making sure you have a bit of slack in your plans to deal for smaller stuff that comes up.

If there are known potential disruptions, can you make a plan for how you might deal with them if they come up?

Start by planning what you hope to be able to accomplish given the normal parameters.

• What are your priorities?
• How will you create some boundaries to make sure you get to the important stuff?
• Include some slack as a buffer (See Juggling 101: elements of a good plan).

Then identify the risk of serious disruptions:

• Is there an ongoing labour dispute with potential for strike action?
• Is a snowstorm or other weather event likely at this time of year?
• Do you live somewhere that tends to flood if there are heavy rains? Long term weather forecasting is not very reliable but it can give you a sense of how likely something serious might be.

Hoping for the best, make a few decisions to prepare for the worst.

• If you have to drop something, what will you drop?
• What do you want to make sure doesn’t get dropped no matter what?
• Is there a minimum standard you can meet if you have less time even if ideally you’d like to do better?

Trying to make this contingency plan might reveal details about how you’d make those decisions that you can’t decide now. If so, make a plan for rejigging your plan.

• If X happens, what steps will you take to rejig your plan at that point?
• What questions will you ask yourself?
• What criteria will you use to rank your priorities?

Making a contingency plan now, while it’s not urgent, can reduce the emotional and cognitive resources needed if this disruption happens. Assuming you should be unaffected by such events, or that the effects should all be in your personal life and not affect your work, is not reasonable.

Related Posts:

Juggling 101: Elements of a good plan

Juggling, jigsaws, and navigating by the stars: making reasonable plans

Have you come down with something?

Mid-semester burnout (i.e. planning for your capacity being lower than in other months)

Lightly edited and added to the Spotlight On Dystopia, Uncertainty & Disruption in April 2023.