The Art of Keeping on Time by Slacking Off

by Kathy Seaton

By Janet DiVincenzo

I’m lucky in that I can bike to work about a third of the time. One recent morning I set out for work on my bike. I had to be at work a little early. My office was going to be used for a film shoot and I had to do some light housekeeping. So this wasn’t the morning to be late for work. I was already running a little late when I left the house but I wasn’t cutting it too close. Or so I thought. About halfway to my office, the chain slipped off the sprocket. I’m no bike mechanic, but I’ve done this sort of repair a few times. Still it’s never pleasant to get your fingers full of grease.

So I pulled over, threw down my backpack, and got to work. Okay, I can do this, I tell myself. But the chain was so taut I could hardly move it. There has got to be SLACK in this chain somewhere. I just have to find the slack and reposition the chain. Find the slack, I told myself! Soon I found the slack and fixed the chain. Phew. Greasy fingers just an unpleasant consequence.

The rest of the ride got me thinking about slack of a different kind. In project management, slack, sometimes called float, is the amount of time something can be delayed with causing other delays. I didn’t have much slack in my schedule this morning – but I had enough to overcome my short delay.

So, what about you? Do you allow enough slack when you schedule your projects? When you put together a schedule, do you assume that everything will pretty much go according to plan? Or do you build in time for when things go awry? Because, you know, they will and that’s when being a slacker really pays off!