Day 140: Plan Ahead

"He who fails to plan, plans to fail." --Unknown

By nature, I am not a planner. It's a trait that makes me super fun to hang around, because I'm usually up for anything, and I'll go along with whatever everyone else wants to do. It's also a trait that used to cause me huge amounts of stress when I was in school. I still have dreams (or nightmares) about forgetting to study for tests or papers that are due that I haven't started. I'll wake up in a cold sweat only to realize that I graduated years ago, and my days of procrastinating on school work are over.

Planning is essential for a project that this. And all too often, I'm finding myself getting too close to the end of the day without having done something that I've never done before. I have a long list of things I want to do before the year is up, but fitting them all in with a job, friends, real-life responsibilities is hard. Really hard.

On Sunday, Day 140, I did something I've never done before and I planned the entire week of blog entries.

Planning what I was going to do each day felt kind of lame, not to mention the exact opposite of what this project is all about. I am spontaneous. I live for the moment. I don't want to nail everything down and therefore close myself off to new ideas.

On the other hand, waking up knowing what challenge I was going to tackle helped me focus just on that activity, without worrying about what I was going to do the next day. One day's plan did end up falling through, so I had to act quickly to come up with something else. But having scheduled everyday before the week even began, made for some excellent activities and far less stress than most weeks.

I like the spontaneity that this project requires. I like that often I go into a day open to what new things will present themselves, prepared to seize each opportunity as it comes. But a little planning never hurt either, and I think I could stand to make it a more regular occurrence both for the blog, and in life.