Russian Visa - dumb luck or impeccable planning?

Visa applications are a tedious and expensive process.  Thankfully I only had to get 3 visas for my trip ... China, Mongolia and Russia.

China and Mongolia were a breeze but the Russian visa had the issue of timing for me.  According to "the rules" you can't submit your visa application any earlier than 3 months prior to entry into the country.  For me this meant I could only apply within 3 weeks of me leaving home.

I was organised ... I had everything I needed ... I knew the process.  I was confident I had counted the number of days correctly but I was lazy (typical), put off sending the application for a couple of days in favour of some social engagements (also typical) and was too cheap to pay the extra $50 for an expedited application (oddly atypical given the amount of money I spend on beer).  So I sent in my application and patiently waited.

And waited.

The Chinese and Mongolian applications were processed so quickly I expected the Russian process to be the same.  But I was still confident.

However, I still hadn't received my passport back with a week to go until my flight to Beijing.  Or 5 days to go.  Or 4.

I was less confident at this point and I had another look at the Russian visa application site.  Turns out I misread the number of days it would take for the application to be processed.  Depending on how they counted the days it's possible my passport would not arrive until the day I was supposed to fly out.

With 3 days to go I started to look at new flights to Beijing just in case.

And then ... success!  My passport arrived today!  A mere 2 days before my trip starts.  

So the question is ... can I claim impeccable planning?  Or do I have to go with dumb luck?