What will you do if your computer crashes today? Or, you spill coffee all over your white shirt right before an important meeting? Or, your cell phone falls in the toilet and won’t turn on? Or, your kid gets sick?

Everyone has bad days where nothing seems to go as planned but you can’t throw in the towel, shove your plans for the day out the window, and resort to curling up with a giant bowl of ice cream. You must brush off the dirt, stand up to that bully Murphy, and say, What else you got?
The truth is life often dishes out unpleasantries. Murphy’s Law exists for a reason and just about everyone can paraphrase it because things do go wrong, a lot, and often when you least expect them. No amount of planning can keep Murphy from knocking when he’s ready to rumble. Life will always be full of unwelcome surprises that can throw you off course. Are you going to let such unfortunate happenings frustrate you to the point you lose sight of your goals for the day? Or, will you choose the productive path of not letting your emotions get the best of you and staying on track? Your choice will greatly determine how circuitous or straight-lined your path to success will be.
When the unexpected occurs and threatens to ruin your plans for the day, follow these steps to stay on track:

How to Turn Your Bad Day Right-Side Up

1. Stay calm and handle whatever obstacle fell into your path.
2. Revisit your plan for whatever tasks, projects, and activities you had lined up for the day.
3. Quickly re-evaluate your position and identify which tasks are still priorities. Rank those tasks in priority order from most urgent to least urgent.
4. Focus on accomplishing one task at a time in priority order for the duration of the day. You’ll be tempted to multitask. Don’t! Multitasking is never the answer.
5. Stay positive and focused. If you work toward completing even one task, you’re still moving your business forward, so the entire day is not a waste. Tomorrow is a new day in which you can start fresh.

On several occasions over the years I have had the unwelcome surprise of having my computer crash. It inevitably happens on a day where I have an important presentation I need to work on, a project that demands finishing, or an uncompromising deadline.

Every time my computer crashes, I feel like my The Productivity Specialist title is being tested by a higher power. After all, everything is on my computer. My financial records, contacts, business procedures, personal photos. Everything. I’ve learned you can’t avoid such inconveniences as a computer crash but you can create a useful game plan for when they occur. Here’s mine:

How to Spend Your (Inevitable Computer Crash) Day

First and foremost, backup your files before anything bad could possibly happen to them. You think having to call your credit card companies when you misplace your wallet is an annoyance? Trust me. You don’t want to have to perform countless Google searches to recover each of your clients’ emails and phone numbers. Oh, and those pictures of your son’s first birthday? Yeah, you’re never getting those back unless you back up your files!

Also, create a backup task list of items you can work on offline. Such a list will come in handy when your computer stops working or when you otherwise don’t have access to your computer. Idle time, such as when you’re waiting at the doctor’s office, early for a meeting, or finding yourself with “dead” time between out-of-office appointments, is the perfect opportunity to take on such tasks.

Your offline task list should not include high-priority items. It can even be loaded with busy work as long as they’re tasks you intended to do anyway. Could you read that magazine article you keep putting on the backburner? Finally write those thank you cards? Purge that file cabinet? Call your favorite past client? If you take time to create an offline task list now, you’ll be prepared for what could otherwise be a wasted day.
When your computer crashes (and it will) or any other unexpected event shows up to disrupt your day, refocus your attention to the activities you can complete instead of dwelling on what you can’t work on. Most often when Murphy puts up a fight, time is wasted simply to frustration and not being able to recalibrate quickly. The faster you can switch gears and refocus, the better off you’ll be. Turn your day back to right-side up by sticking to your plan as much as possible and relegating to your backup plan as needed.

This article originally appeared in the Autumn 2018 issue of CHOICES Magazine