What to Do When Your Plans Get Thrown Out the Window

Now that the dust is beginning to settle and we’re starting to get a handle on all the Zoom meetings, Slack channels, and email “check-ins,” I want to talk about something that has probably crossed your mind in the last few weeks:

“What the heck am I supposed to do now?“

Whether you had to shut down your lab, put a grant application on the back burner, or figure out (in a week!) how to move all your teaching online and homeschool your kids, the plans that you had for the year just got shot out of a cannon and obliterated.

Which feels more than a little disorienting, right?

If you did any kind of annual goal-setting in January, those plans and projects may seem laughable now.

(Mine sure do.)

But instead of abandoning any pretense that you actually *have* goals and letting the rest of 2020 just happen to you, let me suggest another option:

Now’s the time to pivot.

Now’s the time to prioritize.

One of the strategies I taught in my 2020 goal-setting series was to review your progress every quarter and make any necessary adjustments to your goals and your projects.

Welp, guess what? We just finished the first quarter of 2020.

And the next nine months are…well, who knows.

Le sigh.

So: if you have the capacity for it (and don’t worry if you don’t), now’s a good time to go back through your 2020 goals and projects so that you can make those necessary pivots for the second quarter of the year—and beyond.

But don’t get it twisted: this isn’t about figuring out how to salvage your former level of productivity and crank out as many projects as possible.

It’s about taking stock of where you are, and figuring out the essential pieces that need to get done to keep you afloat.

**Instead of feeling guilty about all the things you’re not doing, you’re making clear and deliberate choices about what matters right now.**

It’s totally possible to create some structure and a sense of control, even as circumstances continue to change.

To help you out with that, I’m hosting a free 5-day series to help you re-work your 2020 research goals. No presh, low bar: it’ll take about 15 minutes a day for five days.

You can register for the series here.

I hope you’re staying safe and healthy.