Working Up

by Dwayne Phillips

There is the meta-plan or the plan about the plan. There is the meta-rehearsal or the rehearsal for the rehearsal. There are many other meta-this-and-that. They are quite useful.

My wife and I have been married since 1983 (40 years as of the writing of this post). I recall our wedding rehearsal. I recall the rehearsal for the rehearsal. We sat with my father (the person who married us) and talked about the rehearsal. Guess what? The actual wedding rehearsal for several dozen participants went quickly and without confusion or angst.

There is planning to plan. Before a planning session with lots of folks working, be sure to have all the resources on hand. That way, people don’t stand around waiting for someone to find a white board and marker.

There are many other of these meta-things.

• prepare to prepare
• practice to practice
• outline how I will outline
• meet to meet
• run a tournament to run a tournament
• write to write
• blog to blog

I could go on. Sure, we could take this to the extreme and rehearse to rehearse to rehearse to …

There are advantages to simply start something without preparing for it. Some folks do that quite well. Most of those folks, however, have done the exercise many times and are always prepared to do it. Some folks are simply well prepared to be unprepared. They do that quite well.

The rest of us? Let’s rehearse to rehearse and so on. I need to do that sort of thing. I’m not smart enough to “just do it.” Let’s all admit when we are in the 98.6% and have to do these meta things. We can all do better.