Where'd the day go?
TL;DR
When you plan, you make decisions with intent.
The result is that your days are not only aligned with your goals, but you feel less stress and anxiety because you’re not constantly making spur-of-the-moment decisions reactively.
I love a good plan. That’s no surprise to anyone who knows me well.
Just the other day my 10-year old said to me, “Mom, we are really good planners! You know how I know that’s true? We have the word PLAN in our last name.”
Smart kid — I had never put that together! (For those of you who don’t know, my married name is Kaplan.)
That MUST be why I love working on daily/weekly/monthly planning with my clients. And also because I’ve seen the magic that can happen when a client commits to a plan toward their goals that they can get behind.
Truth is, each of us needs a different set of ingredients and conditions to do our best work. This is why there is no daily planning system that works for everyone.
Instead, you must be creative about designing a plan that allows you to show up for what matters most to you on a daily basis. We teach this in The Creative Path Course and work on this individually with clients in private coaching all the time.
Occasionally I hear someone say, “I can’t believe I need a coach to help me plan my day!” And to that I reply, "Why is that so hard to believe, and what’s so wrong with that anyway?"
We all need a witness, an accountability partner, a champion, a sounding board — someone who is not us, helping us catch our blindspots, see the bigger picture, and stay out of our own way.
Annie Dillard wrote, “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives.” To me, there is nothing more fascinating than investigating how we are spending our days and making sure that they are aligned with our goals and the bigger vision we have for our lives.
This article on productivity confirms what we’ve been teaching for over 19 years in the Path Course and what I believe to be true about the value of daily planning: “Producing creative work relies on both sides of the brain, including the part controlling executive function…The best way to get things done, then, is almost always to make a plan — and, more specifically, to write it out."
Let’s face it, you don’t need me to tell you how hard we are all working, how little sleep most of us are getting, and how addicted we are to devices and screens. The truth is that we have TOO MANY options facing us each and every minute of the day. What this means is that when we need to make a decision in the moment — any decision — we tend to feel overwhelmed and usually end up choosing the easiest thing or nothing at all (which often brings about feelings of guilt).
Planning frees you of all that unwelcome stress. When you plan, you make decisions with intent. And the result is that you feel less anxiety because you’re not constantly in a state of reaction.
You’re in control.
You can see your progress.
And, most importantly, you’re on your way to achieving your goals!