I am on vacation in Taos, New Mexico this week with my husband and 15-year-old nephew, Evan, who spends every summer with us.  We are staying in a very nice condominium and having lots of adventures: a llama trek, river rafting trip, horseback ride, visits to the Taos Pueblo and various art galleries, restaurants, historic markers and other areas of interest.    Like any good project manager, I spent a considerable amount of time planning for this trip.  I did a lot of research on places to stay and restaurants to visit.  I researched different vendors to determine who to book our activities with, and I reserved in advance.    I also have a “standard packing list” of additional items that I bring whenever we stay in a condo: a good cutting knife, two good cooking pans, coffee, tea, extra kitchen towels, etc.  My planning efforts paid off enough that Evan told me “I like this ‘planning in advance thing’”, which I believe means that he sees the value in preparation, which is an example I am happy to provide for a teenager.   This focus on preparation brings to mind the adage my old college professor at University of North Texas, Ernestine Farr, used to drill into our heads in the advertising classes she taught in the School of Journalism.  At least one thousand times I heard her say “Young people, it takes a lot of work to make something look easy”.     Yesterday we went on our rafting trip down the Rio Grande and I had a chance to appreciate someone else’s planning efforts.  We chose to take our raft trip with Los Rios River Runners (http://losriosriverrunners.com/), one of several outfitters operating in the area.  I chose them because I liked their website: it gave a comprehensive list of items we needed to bring on our trip and copious amounts of information about the different trips they offer.    Following the detailed directions they provided, we met in the parking lot of the Rio Grande Gorge Visitors Center yesterday morning.  There were about 50 people milling about, preparing to embark on one of the three trips that the company was leading that day.   In fairly short order, they had divided us into the appropriate groups and loaded us into school buses to head to our various points of departure.  There were 25 people in our group, who had signed up for the full day raft trip down the Taos Box Lower Gorge, and six guides.  The bus driver collected our car keys so that no one would have to worry about losing them on the river.    After driving a few miles, we reached our departure point.  Some of the guides worked to ready to rafts, while the others fitted us all with paddles and life jackets and gave us a quick safety lecture.   We were organized into groups and paired up with a raft and guide.  Evan, my husband and I had a raft to ourselves, with our guide, Trenton, who did a wonderful job of pointing out the sites as well as informing us about why the raft moved the way it did over the water and why he told us to row when and how he did.   After a few hours, we stopped for lunch.  As we disembarked, the guides disappeared and left us in the care of a professional photographer who took photos of each group that we have the option of purchasing after reviewing online.  Since we didn’t take our camera or any other valuables on the raft with us, we were happy to have this option.        Once the photos were taken, the photographer directed us to a picnic area where our guides had laid out a beautiful sandwich buffet with meats, cheeses, breads and an array of vegetables they had sliced while we were with the photographer: avocado, red onion, lettuce, tomato, red bell pepper, etc.  The piece de resistances were the fresh pineapples one of the guides expertly carved up.    After a quick trip to the portapotties, we got back on the rafts for the more adventurous portion of the tour.  During the morning, we had been on fairly calm water and had a chance to practice paddling in unison under Trenton’s direction, while he talked about the importance of teamwork on the raft.  In the afternoon, we got into some rocky areas and saw some real white water, and used the skills we had worked on during the morning.  It was awesome!   And then, much too soon, it was over.  We reached the drop off point, where the Los Rios bus was waiting for us.  The guides quickly loaded the rafts on the trailer attached to the bus, and we boarded the bus to return to the Visitors Center.  We retrieved our keys from the bus driver, thanked our guides and were on our way, amazed at how efficiently the guides had managed our trips.  The entire day had been planned down to the minute, and whether it was apparent to the guests or not, there was considerable interplay between the executing and monitoring and controlling tasks throughout the day.  We never showed up anywhere that someone from the tour outfitter wasn’t waiting for us.    I am a hardcore planner, and I think the people in my life benefit from it.  If you are a project manager, your organizational skills carry over into all aspects of your life – not just helping the people you work with, but also your family and your community.  Yesterday I got to benefit from someone else’s organizational skills and I really appreciated it.