Back

The Art of Flexible Planning: How to Navigate Life's Unexpected Twists | Day 283 of my 2023 Journal

Cecilie Conrad·Oct 12, 2023· 3 minutes

Plan with a pencil, always!

It is a good thing we are flying high on energy and that we are used to troubleshooting and changing our plans.

The boxes planned to be sent to Denmark were to be delivered on a specific date, but that date was changed less than 24 hours before, pushed back into our dental appointments in Barcelona and the day we were saying goodbye to the grandparents. 



Logistics is always a funny one to figure out: seats in the van, timing with the dentist and airplane, timing with who gets hungry when, and can the dogs be accepted in the taxi - all that stuff when we move the big group take up a lot of our planning hours.

I remember about 12 years ago when a friend pointed it out: We are mostly calm when sh** happens. She watched our family of 6 +1 dog when we could not start our car at 11 pm mid-winter trying to go home after visiting her in the countryside. Kids small, infant, 3, 6, 10 - something like that. It was no big deal, really - you can only control what you can control, and after that, it is just troubleshooting mode. And sometimes chaos control.

Panic will not help.

Falling out with each other will not help.

Just a quick analysis: What is urgent? What pieces do not move? How do we get to peace again fast?

So, on this day, Jesper picked up his parents, then the boxes, and drove to the drop-off, then to the big BCN parking, then via taxi to a lovely cafe to drop off the parents before running to the dentist. Meanwhile, the kids and I took the morning train to BCN, standing all the way, enjoying the fantastic view of the Mediterranean. And walked to the dentist.

At 11.25, we were all done with that, met with the grandparents, had ice cream, visited Ravid, the hardpan artist, walked to the restaurant - unfortunately, both grandparents were robbed in the street on the way - and had a good long debriefing of that, and a nice lunch, before we drove them to the airport, and from there to the house we have rented to have space to get everything ready for the trip to Mexico.

All boxes ticked.

All good.

With love

Cecilie-Underskrift-300x133

Cecilie Conrad

Thank you for reading
I would love to hear from you. Listen to your thoughts and reflections - or praise :) It is often emotional to share our lives like this, and we get very happy when we get your feedback. So feel free to share a comment below 😋 

More images on Facebook

It is funny how walking from Dorsodura, where we live, to the Saint Mark Basilica is a journey from a good tourist experience to something like hell.…Read more
Ten years ago, we visited Venice for the first time. Our youngest son was just a little one, my hair was still short after cancer, and I still had m…Read more
It is not all beach, UNESCO site, amazing nature, and repeat. Some days, we are just practical. These days are not to be taken lightly. They are impo…Read more
Some days on our journey are so packed that it is simply impossible to reflect on them the next morning as my 365 challenge asks for. Sometimes, I ha…Read more
Ravenna showed up on our travel itinerary because of a Donald Duck story. It is funny how things are connected. Read more
We have crossed the mountains from the coast and sunshine to the coast, crossing a landscape of snow. And we lived in Sant’Oleo for three days lookin…Read more
We are grateful to have a life from which we do not need a pause. We have created and allowed ourselves a life with freedom enough to decide how we w…Read more
Traveling from Sicily to Copenhagen between the beginning of March and late May will give us three months of spring. Being Danish, escaping six month…Read more
As anarchists, we are not much for rules. As self-directed, we don’t do rules. The structure of a rule is not flexible and can never take into accoun…Read more