This blog post is a reminder to myself, that I need to follow the personal practices that I have setup for myself as well as laugh at a mishap I had over the weekend. This is an analysis of a set of cascading failures just like dominoes that almost ruined a work field trip, lengthening travel time from an 8 hour road trip to over 12 hours.

The backstory is I am an Wikipedia – ENTJ via Myers Briggs, an Wikipedia – Aires (the first fire sign in the Zodiac), with sufficient twist of hyperactivity and vey easily distracted, as I love shiny things so jump from one thing to another.

For this field trip, as part of my organization, I had the stationery and projector with me, wow well organized (so I thought) and was preparing for a Sunday morning 9.30am meeting at the rendezvous point. My usual practice is to prepare everything the evening before, keep things in very specific locations so that I only have to rely on muscle memory

Mistake #1: Not moving the field trip materials to the car on Saturday evening, but having them very well arranged in the sitting room

Mistake #2: Not packing my bags the night before, since oh well, this should be easy.

Mistake #3: Not charging my laptop to 100%, as I always do before a trip (8 hours long)

Come Sunday morning, I overslept, waking up at 7.30am in a panic, started to pack my bags in a hurry, with help from my wife – whom I was rushing but whose demeanor and style is not to hurry. So at 9am, I was all packed an ready (but running behind schedule) with a 1hour drive to the meeting point.

Arrived at the meeting point at 10am, but the transporters were running behind schedule too. So well, took the time to unwind and cool down from the morning rush. And well since they were late, I checked on my latop which was not fully charged and plugged it into the socket.

At 11am, the drivers arrived, and awesome, I unplugged my laptop, and placed the charger in my bag (hey I tend to leave it all over the place). When I walked to the car to validate the travel arrangements, it hit me that I had forgotten the stationery and projector at home, so panic again – fortunately it was on our route to Jinja (80km and about 75min drive), so a slight detour. But to ensure that we lost no time, we had to leave before everyone else to make up the lost time.

Everything went smooth, however I also resisted the urge to open my bag and watch a movie on the latop since we had all the time in the world. Here I was feeling very accomplished, when at the first stop in Jinja town we got a call that I had left my laptop in Kampala. BOOM!!!

Panic again, and a moment of truth, go back for the latop or get it to me in Jinja. Well I did the latter, and after a call to an available trusted boda guy, the wait began as he flew all the way to Jinja, and about 75 min later we were on our way.

What lessons do I take from this?

1. Dr Charles B. Mukasa “Whenever you depart from established practice, you will spend 10x the effort and 10x the time”. A reminder not to depart from practices that I have set for myself
2. A little discomfort however tired you are, especially when you are very tired, is to ensure that all is lined up to match your personal practices as this is the native subconcious memory
3. Keep good relationships with the boda boda drivers, and have a couple of trusted ones whom you can leverage for such errands
4. Laugh at your misfortunes, as this makes them all the less painful

Fortunately, I have settled into the field training and now back in rythmn