No matter how organized you are, life will throw you a curveball.

It might be anything: the weather, a traffic congestion, a medical emergency situation, a PR crisis.

No matter the situation, these unplanned events need to be dealt with immediately.

How can you handle them efficiently without triggering excessive harm to your goals, reputation, or schedule?

Let’s state you’re on track for an app launch next week and a cyclone eliminates your main servers.

What do you need to do to meet your due date?

If you have a conference with prospective financiers, but discover yourself stuck in traffic, how will you make a great impression– and still stand a possibility of earning their financial investment?

At Calendar, I’ve invested additional time preparing the team on how to respond to challenges and emergencies.

I desire them to handle whatever comes their way without complete panic.

Here are five strategies for handling unforeseen occasions, without entirely trashing your schedule.

Be Prepared

Dealing with the unforeseen is currently a stressful circumstance.

Simply imagine if you didn’t have any sort of contingency plan.

Things might go from bad to DEFCON 1– fast!

While you can’t prepare for everything, you need to take time to draw up and review an emergency situation plan

Start by reflecting on what unanticipated issues you have actually had to resolve in the past.

Take a look at common issues your competitors have actually gotten rid of.

Review info about your area’s weather, natural catastrophes, and economic state– and repeat this for the various places where you work.

Utilize the power of big data and machine learning to help identify your Achilles heel.

This won’t forecast every scenario, but it can assist you determine the crises you’re more most likely to experience and make recommendations on which actions to take.

Now that you have a list of possible scenarios, produce an action strategy.

At a minimum, you must consist of clearly defined goals and protocols, along with a list of the responsibilities you and your team will handle.

For instance, you may appoint a trusted employee to act as media representative, while you’re handling customers.

Think about the strengths of each staff member and department, and note what kind of training requires to occur ahead of time.

Develop a Strategy B and C.

Even with preparation, emergencies are difficult.

Eliminating the “frenzied scrambling” aspect allows you to focus, and prevent the errors that might make matters worse.

Leave Blank Spaces in Your Calendar

A real emergency situation will need you to stop what you’re doing and address it instantly.

However a few of the unexpected events might be able to wait until you have availability.

Keeping area in your calendar provides you flexibility.

You achieve that by leaving blocks of time without any commitments.

I understand what you’re believing.

” Should be good not to be hectic! I don’t have that kind of high-end.”

My rebuttal: Track your time for a couple of weeks to see how it’s being invested.

You might see you’re losing an hour every day on e-mail or social networks, due to the fact that you inspect the platforms whenever you receive an alert or take a seat at your desk.

If you can cut that down to one or two times a day, you might amazingly free up your schedule.

The point is: avoid packing your calendar to the brim.

Intentionally shut out time for absolutely nothing, and let it stand.

If an emergency emerge, you may be able to look after it in that timeframe.

If you require to address the scenario earlier, you have the alternative to move your schedule around.

And even if you aren’t confronted with a problem or a crisis, you can still use that block of time to your advantage.

You could establish your emergency plan, train staff members on brand-new tasks, finish that dull administrative job, or just catch your breath.

You can even begin a list of “downtime” tasks that you overlook when you’re busy.

This includes checking out competitors’ sites, checking out up on market patterns, and establishing in-person meet-ups with people in your network.

Keep Everyone in the Loop

Of course, you require to keep all essential stakeholders notified when there’s a crisis.

For minor inconveniences– like making an emergency visit to the dental practitioner– you most likely just need to let your assistant know, who can then notify other individuals appropriately.

For a full-blown crisis, all your employees, consumers, partners, and providers need to hear from you, so you can remain ahead of the rumor mill.

If people do not discover from you, they– or others who might not have your benefits in mind– will fill in the gaps.

That can lead to extra time invested remedying details, clarifying goals, and getting your emergency strategy in movement.

Communicating early (and as frequently as needed) is a great way to protect or help restore your credibility.

Use Automation Carefully

I love automation.

It’s made my life easier.

It can likewise can be found in useful throughout the unexpected.

For instance, you could develop an out-of-office message for your e-mail and calendar, letting people understand you’re presently unavailable and when to expect you back.

If you have to cancel a conference or consultation, your scheduling software can send an automatic message to the other party to reschedule the event.

On the other hand, depending upon the crisis, you might desire to turn off set up posts and advertisements.

These automated interactions frequently only add fuel to the fire.

As a consequence, you might wind up spending more time cleaning up the mess you ‘d accidentally made.

Strike Preemptively

If you know there’s a circumstance that might toss a wrench in your schedule, you require to act before it snowballs into something larger.

Let’s state you come house from work sensation actually ill.

But, you advise yourself, you need to make it in tomorrow since you’ve got a crucial lunch conference.

You could play it safe that night, let the person understand you’re under the weather, and require to reschedule.

If you don’t and you awaken sensation awful, you’ll be annoyed with yourself.

Due to the fact that this gives the other individual less time to get ready for a schedule modification of her own.

If you appear sick to keep a commitment, the other individual may dislike it.

And they may become hesitant to set up another meeting with you.

The exact same holds real if there’s inclement weather condition that might wreak havoc with your morning commute.

Strategy ahead in case you can’t leave the home.

Take your laptop and battery charger home.

Bring along any documents you require to examine.

It’s constantly much better to be safe than sorry.

Plus, it enables you to keep your calendars and timelines (primarily) on track.

Performing quickly likewise comes with a bonus benefit.

It avoids scheduling disputes from developing.

If you wait too long to reschedule an occasion, your calendar– in addition to the other person’s– will start to fill with obligations.

This makes it harder to discover an open slot.

Prepare For Unforeseen Emergency Situations

Unanticipated circumstances are already demanding.

Preparation ahead makes them a little bit more manageable.

More importantly, preparing will guarantee you won’t totally ruin your schedule for the foreseeable future.

Emergency Situation or not, you have things to do.

How do you manage unexpected situations? Please share your comments listed below.

Photo by Eric Rothermel on Unsplash