So, there I was standing in my kitchen, feeling satisfied that I was on top of things and everything was in control. I had taken the dog to the vets for some checks, the plumber was changing the heating pump and I was all prepared for a call I had later in the day. Then my phone beeped and a text came through from a friend of mine saying “We are in the airport lounge, where are you?”
I suddenly realised I had mixed up my dates and we, me and my wife, were suppose to be flying to Oslo with our friends in 35 minutes time. As we live in Bournemouth and the flight was from Heathrow, I immediately knew this was not going to have a good ending! In my diary I had the trip booked from the Friday to the Monday but, on my tickets it clearly stated the 10th Feb (Thursday) to the 14th Feb (Monday). I had even printed the boarding tickets the day before!
When I, eventually, stopped swearing and shouting, I got onto the laptop and searched for another flight, the next day, so at least we didn’t lose the trip, hotel booking and return flights. When we eventually got to Oslo, we had a fantastic time, relaxed and enjoyed seeing a place we had never visited before. As you could imagine, my mates gave me loads of hassle saying “What’s happened? You never make mistakes like that, it must be your age!” And, they are right, it’s not something that I get mixed up (Nothing to do with my age though!). I use my diary to keep me in check and it is my source of information when it comes to what I am doing or plan on doing the whole year.
The problem is that I put it in the diary on the wrong date and didn’t consider that I’d have done that. Even when I read the boarding cards on the Wednesday, I still didn’t ‘switch on’ as I was sure my diary was right. So, my only reason I can think of is that when I was booking the trip away, I got distracted and was, probably, multi-tasking on a number of projects, including the log cabin!
This is never a great recipe for success (Irrelevant if your a man or woman) we just don’t do loads of things 100% effectively when we try to concentrate on multiple jobs – something has to suffer. So, lessons learnt, I will always check diary entries for trips away, multiple times and cross reference to bookings, well in advance of travelling.
Have you ever messed up your travel plans because you were too busy to check things?
Some, obvious, top tips to avoid doing what I just did:
- Do important tasks in an environment where you can concentrate
- If you get distracted, revisit and review your plans, just to be sure you got it right
- Check your travel plans at least a week before you go ????
Onwards and upwards, every day is a school day and it’s ok to get it wrong now and then, after all, we are only human!