Embracing Life's Unpredictability
Photo by Amsterdam City Archives on Unsplash
This past summer I experienced a layover that took on a life of its own. I had been away from my family for some weeks; they had flown ahead to Germany for my kids to visit their grandparents. Flying to meet them and spend the end of our summer vacation together, I was on the cheapest (read, not direct) flight we could find—a British Airways flight connecting through London Heathrow. As the time approached for my connecting flight to Frankfurt, I dutifully went to the gate. Gradually, we were informed to move to another gate. Okay, no big deal. I schlepped myself and my carry-on to the next gate. Flying east from the States, I was groggy from flying overnight: I found a seat, put on my headphones, turned on some music and closed my eyes. Later, opening my eyes as airline personnel were rearranging some stanchions, I noticed there were suspiciously too few people at this gate. It had been reassigned, again. And then again. Finally, the fourth gate was the “real” gate. But the fourth gate was not one with a jetway, but one where you board a bus to be driven out to the aircraft. More waiting…
I had originally planned to board a train in Frankfurt that would get me to my in-laws by 8PM, in time for dinner… that boat had long since sailed (or plane flown?) and was no longer realistic.
The bus brought us out to the aircraft and we all promptly boarded. The captain came on and said (paraphrasing), “...sorry for the delay. The first gate the plane parked at had a broken jetway. Then there were problems finding an alternative gate, and then the bus crew was unaware of the unplanned need to get us to our current parking spot. We’ll be underway in about 10 minutes.” I closed my eyes and went to sleep. I woke up about 50 minutes later... We were still sitting on the tarmac.
My travel episode, though maybe a little more severe than most (or not), is not unique and perhaps unremarkable—I’m sure many have much worse travel anecdotes. Maybe what is remarkable is that episodes like this feel so commonplace. My sense is that both the airline and the airport operate on the ideal that everything will run optimally, and they have little to no buffer for things to go less than smoothly. The system lacks the robustness to appropriately handle unplanned situations.
This travel hiccup was more than just an inconvenience; it served as a metaphor for how I often mismanage my time. I recently read Essentialism by Greg McKeown (10 years late, I know). Generally, I subscribe to the ideals of living a minimalist life. I believe in focus and not being overcommitted. I believe in the value of saying, no. But when McKeown discusses buffers and describes his acquaintance, “…who always thinks it will take her five minutes to get to the store because she made the journey in five minutes once”, I felt uncomfortably called out. I am that hypothetical person: getting out of the door at the last possible moment and scrambling to get to the next place on time (and often breaking a sweat in the process), trying to fit more into my schedule than I should, often being five minutes late. Just as the airline's lack of contingency plans disrupted my journey, my tendency to underestimate buffers in my schedule often leads to stress and missed connections, both literally and figuratively.
There is a particular personality test where I came out with the label, “gloomy pessimist”. Ironically, through a misplaced optimism (relying on things to run optimally), I believe that I have developed this habit in the name of maximizing my time and fitting more into the day, at the expense of not only being late, but also robbing myself of quality of experiences, not allowing myself time to fully arrive and be present. Maybe you match that description too?
The idea of using buffers, as the name suggests, is simply allowing more time and preparedness for doing a thing—getting from point A to B (physically and/or mentally—i.e. context switching), completing a task, a project, creative work, etc—because the most optimal (fastest) amount of time to do a thing is rarely the actual amount of time it takes. Points of friction and unplanned scenarios often arise, causing delays.
Source: Author
Aside: Interestingly though, for me, using (or not using) buffers does not apply uniformly in all areas of life. For example, when I am building something—e.g. doing a house project—I have a heuristic: I take my gut estimate and double it. That often (not always) works out pretty well; roaming the aisles of Home Depot always takes longer than you think… “squirrel!”
And with a product management background, I have long since come to the conclusion that most people are bad at estimating creative work. There are ways around that—e.g. I believe that we [people] are good at comparing things and can compare the expected complexity of new work relative to recently completed work to better estimate effort, which acknowledges the 'unknown unknowns' inherent in novel work.
I digress. There’s a lot that can be discussed about planning. I would like to keep this focused on the simple, philosophical points surrounding transitions. Having owned up to often not creating enough buffer in my routine transitions, this has, from time to time, been a source of stress and conflict in my personal relationships. So, I am working on it.
Experimenting with allowing myself more time to transition by building in a bigger buffer, here is a short list of the things that I am trying:
To get from point A to B on time, I am adding 10 minutes to my estimate: a five-minute buffer plus an additional five minutes, expecting that I'll dip into the first buffer… (a buffer on the buffer: the games we plays with ourselves…); for an alternative, McKeown suggests adding 50% to your estimate.
Scheduling transition times to block off my calendar
Additionally, kids being the sponges that they are and adopting our own bad habits, we have begun experimenting with telling them exactly the time we’re leaving, and they’re either in the car or they’re not (and get to stay at home, not allowed to do screen time).
These are experiments; it’s a journey. I don’t pretend that these will stick, but we’re trying.
Reflecting back on my Heathrow experience, the airline's oversight of contingency plans mirrors the gaps I've found in my own habits. It’s a reminder that operating based on the optimal scenario doesn’t maximize efficiency; instead, it creates fragility, unnecessary stress, and tardiness. We can accept that delays and disruptions are an inevitable part of life and allow time and space for them to happen so that we can adapt, or we can be caught unprepared and continue the struggle to recapture control over our journey. Ultimately, by letting go of the elusive expectation of perfect efficiency, we open ourselves to embrace life's unpredictability and navigate it with robustness and grace.
