Does this ever happen to you? Sometimes you are confidently going along, thinking that everything is under control, when all of a sudden an unwelcome thought snakes its way to the forefront of your consciousness. Although you don’t really want to believe it, you suddenly realise that you have forgotten something important.

I have to admit that this doesn’t happen to me often. That’s because I keep a paper diary for tracking weekly client tasks, and still use my online calendar for repeat tasks. However, today I realised that I hadn’t set up reminders for all the tasks. The result of that was that I missed one of my self-imposed deadlines by a day. This was not for a client (I never miss those deadlines; must be some instinct for career preservation) but a job that I wanted to do for myself. (Side note: all work at home parents probably experience this, as they tend to be last on the priority list.)

In some ways, it was OK. No-one else noticed and I was able to quickly get the job done, only a few hours late. But when a system isn’t working, you have to be prepared to change it. I now need to see why the reminders I set didn’t work and to make sure that I don’t let it happen again. You never know, next time it could be crucial.