Remember the phrase? It goes something like this: You want to hear God laugh? Tell Her your plans. I’ve been feeling a lot like that lately. God’s having a good laugh over me.

I have a number of projects on my plate, several things I’m trying to make happen. Each day, I plan very carefully to touch on everything that’s important. I figure out how much I can get done in a day, a week, and I grit my teeth and set out each day to do it all.

It seems, though, that the more I do that, the more things happen – both through my fault and through no fault of my own – to change my plans.

Now, I’m not perfect. I don’t begin to imagine that I’ve been using every single moment to its fullest, but I’m pretty good at staying on task through the day. Too often though, things take longer than I expect, or someone doesn’t show up when and where he said. Maybe I get tired, or an overnight guest shows up. Sometimes, the house or someone calls for my attention. It might be a traffic jam, or a thunderstorm blowing in right before I was going to step in the shower, or make a call. When the day’s over I see, with or without productivity, it didn’t play out at all like I planned.

It’s true that when you work from home things tend to change more than within a more predictable job scenario. But even there, you might plan to get certain things done, then, life or your boss, co-worker, customer or fate steps in and the meeting doesn’t happen, the project can’t get finished . . . To depend on life being just as you say, is a waste of energy and emotion.

So, next week, I am going to keep tabs on the jobs on my desk. (I have an index card system for the pieces I’m working on.) Make a list of the people I need to contact and any household business that needs my attention. Otherwise, I’m going to wing it. I’ll stay within my schedule, show up when I promised I would, and do the work I’m supposed to do. But I am going practice letting life flow as it will. I am declaring my independence from the yoke of expectations.

Happy Independence Day to all!