Saskia Stender: Planning is predicting the future

No matter how good your preparation, and how tight your planning, things always go differently.

I have just finished a project that started in November and was due to go to print in January. This took (slightly) longer than expected. After many rounds of corrections and new (image) material each time, it was finally at the press by the end of March. At long last checking the box.

As a result, the rest of your planning also went into disarray. That probably doesn't sound foreign to anyone's ears. Things never go the way you planned in advance.

Much like the weather. In early March, I went skiing in Italy. We were told we were extremely lucky; this was the last week of good snow, after that it would only melt. Next year, we'd go a bit earlier just to be sure. So I was surprised. At the end of March, the mountains were packed with snow, even more than the whole month of February. So what is wisdom, when are you supposed to go?

At Easter, I left for Scotland for a fortnight, a camping holiday. Yes; in a tent. April is pretty much the driest period of the year, check! I had only forgotten one little thing. The temperature. Surely it's very low in April, we won't make the double digits. So that will be tough. But a plan is a plan. We'll just go, take some extra thermal clothing and we'll find out if we can stay warm.

That is exactly what planning means. Planning, adjusting, moving forward and shifting gears. Be honest, if everything goes exactly according to plan, life is pretty boring!

Saskia Stender