How to be reliable (even when life is complicated)

Strategies for staying on track

I imagine that most people who read this newsletter pride themselves on doing what they say they’ll do.

I also know this is easier for some people than others, in ways a lot of productivity literature doesn’t consider. A few years ago, I got a note from a podcast listener who asked what I suggested for people with unpredictable or chronic medical issues. “I know that I have come off as unreliable at times due to my chronic pain, and I don’t like being perceived that way,” she wrote.

I wouldn’t want to be perceived that way either. I know I’m fortunate not to be dealing with chronic pain, but I do have five children. When you are a caregiver for other people, there are many, many logistics that must be dealt with. This is why I get frustrated with productivity literature written by people who aren’t in that position, and who have never even considered what will happen if a babysitter calls in sick, or the nurse calls because your kid needs to be picked up at school. A few years ago, I had the experience of getting a note that one of my books, 168 Hours, was being included on a list of the best time management books of all time. Very exciting! The next minute, I was on the phone with our school system’s bus dispatcher. She told me that the school bus was not going to be able to get down our street due to some work that was suddenly being done, so somebody would need to go stand on a street corner a ways away to get my children.

I was curious how many other authors on that list were dealing with such issues at that moment.

That said, I do believe that even if there are parts of life you can’t control, there are also parts you can. It is possible to build a reputation for being reliable even if you are dealing with more complicated circumstances than someone whose major worry is whether he’ll make it home in time to watch the Phillies game.

Anyone dealing with major life complications should do a few things.

First, take care of yourself. Most of us do better when we are well-rested, well-fed, and moving our physical bodies in whatever ways we’re capable of. Surround yourself with positive people who can keep you fully charged and in a solution-seeking mindset.

Second, become an expert — I’m talking PhD level — on your energy levels and on potential schedule challenges. From my conversations with people with chronic health issues, I’ve learned that there are good days and bad days, and even good hours and bad hours. If there’s any sort of pattern you can detect, this is helpful for planning your life. With young kids, for instance, they tend to have more sick days in January than in, say, September. If you know you generally have a reasonable amount of energy between, say, 8-9 a.m., you want to plan important matters for that window. You can leave routine stuff for lower energy times.

Third, get in the habit of working ahead, and leaving extra space. The extra space can absorb whatever goes wrong, since — as anyone with a complicated life knows — stuff inevitably goes wrong. If an assignment is due Friday, I aim to be done by Tuesday or Wednesday. That way, if I lose a work day early in the week, I still have time to make it up. Or I'm already done and I'm still on track if I lose a day later in the week. Particularly for longer projects, you can often work quite a ways ahead. Book deadlines might be assigned a year or so out. I plan my work to be done at least a month before the deadline. That way anything that happens in the days or weeks before the deadline isn’t an issue.

I also work ahead by taking advantage of any found time when things are going well. So if the kids are all happy or doing something on the weekend, I'll work then, knowing that I might lose time during the week. A few years ago this came in handy when I had a major assignment due on a Wednesday. I’d blocked out time on Monday and Tuesday to deal with it, but some space opened up on the weekend when my husband was doing something with the kids. I managed to get 75 percent of the way done. This turned out to matter when we wound up spending the entire latter half of Monday in the emergency room, with follow up doctor visits on Tuesday. All was treatable, thankfully, but it’s nice, in these circumstances, not to add “call and explain why I need an extension” to the to-do list.

Fourth, while I think of myself as a positive person, I assume things will go wrong. Because I make this assumption, I make plans to address the possibilities I can imagine. Even though all my children are in school now, we still have full time childcare. That way, if my husband and I are both no where near home and a sudden ice storm means school is dismissed three hours early, someone is on-call to deal with it. Someone with a chronic health issue might plan to be at an event, but if it becomes impossible, she’s already trained someone and arranged for that person to be able to cover it if needed, perhaps with her providing virtual support (if that’s possible).

Finally, you might recalibrate what it means to be reliable. When you generally do what you say you’re going to do, people are incredibly understanding in the rare circumstances when you can’t. I know if I had called my editor and asked for an extension after the emergency room incident, it would have been fine. They’d built in space too!

Those of us who value reliability, and worry that we might be perceived as unreliable, might be surprised to learn how many people don’t do what they say they’ll do. I recently learned that the average no-show rate for medical visits in the US is about 18 percent. In some specialties it’s as high as 30 percent. As I have never missed a visit without calling ahead to cancel it boggles my mind that the number is this high.

If you are trying hard and doing good work when you can, most people will understand the few times you can’t. And over time, you can make choices to create a life where you work with people who do understand. Look for organizations with managers who have real lives. Look for organizations that don’t just talk about flexibility but actually have people working at different times and different places. These places are more likely to value talented employees who just need a little extra time and space to do amazing things. So they are the ones who deserve you.