My plan for today lasted almost halfway through the morning.

I sat down at my desk just before 8 a.m., pulled up my task list, and started my daily planning and prioritization process. By 8:05, I had everything slotted into place. If you’d called and asked me what I planned to be doing at any particular time of the day, I could have told you.

From 8:05 to 8:30, I answered emails. Then three coaching calls, half an hour each. After that, I’d planned another half hour to get some coffee, return a couple of phone calls from yesterday, and deal with anything that had come in while I was on my coaching calls. After that, I had planned to sit down and write this, budgeting an hour-and-a-half for the task. But it’s now after 4 p.m., and I’m just sitting down to start writing. What happened to the plan?