Strategic Serendipity

Typical Scene: Supervisor asks employee to take on X project with a deadline approximately six weeks from now. This is such a typical scene that it really doesn't seem that there is much variation in how the story can go from there, right?  Wrong.  Remember those children's books where you make a choice and then the story progresses from there?  Well let's examine just a couple of ways this typical scenario could go. Scenario 1 :  Sometime in the next 72 hours the supervisor stops by the office and asks the employee for a status update on the project.  Either... (a)...the employee has neatly drafted an project plan and happily shares this with the supervisor, or (b)...the employee says something vague to the effect of "it is on target" and wonders why the supervisor is micromanaging the project.   What is going on in these two very different reactions to the same exact question about the same project?   From a Myers-Briggs Type I...

Are you the type of person who likes to start one thing, finish it, and move on to the next? If so, I truly admire you! If not, I feel your drive (and sometimes pain) to be in the middle of many multiple projects all at once. People with this quality have to watch out for two major detailers - not finishing anything and losing track of things. Before I got pregnant, I rarely kept a solid calendar and made lists only when I was feeling overwhelmed. Call it mommy-brain or call it exceeding my capacity to remember things (or call it way too much Diet Coke) but now if something exceeds three things I have to make a list. Considering that I am usually juggling multiple types of projects at work, multiple volunteer commitments, multiple home-based businesses, a pile of bills that always seem to add up to more than my income, and raising a 17-month old son this new "rule of three" means everything goes on a list. 1. Consolidated Source for Lists My favorite way to do this...