It’s Truly in the Plan

There are two kinds of people in this life: those of us who decide to walk our paths by the seat of our pants and those of us who meticulously plot things out, charting our course because we know our destination in advance.

We know every single stop along the way, and we know what it takes to get to each point, whether it’s point A to point C to point L to point N. It doesn’t matter. You have it all mapped out—the lines connect between the letters, and you get there.

I will advocate for planning things out in this post because I feel that even for people who are more spontaneous, having a plan can make things far easier.

But I understand that not everything in life will be planned out.

Think about it. You might not plan on meeting your soulmate after a divorce, but it could happen so beautifully. You might not be planning on loving someone, but being open to something makes things fall into place more easily. Life events don’t always come with a plan, so plan accordingly.

This next point might not resonate with those who don’t believe in a higher power, but my standpoint is that the universe has a plan and design to it, whether you believe in a god, nature itself, or that organization is a purely human construct. I am not ashamed of Jesus Christ, so that’s what I believe about the cosmos.

Even the universe we inhabit, whether you’re religious, if you’re an agnostic, seems to have a plan behind it.

Black holes cause enough gravitation to hold galaxies together because they affect the central mass of star systems in the central bulges of most galaxies. Without planting those there with their specific purpose, galaxies might not hold together in the way they do. Not that supermassive black holes are solely responsible, but they play a part in the cosmic plan of how galaxies evolve over billions of years.

There’s a method behind the cosmic order, and it keeps things together.

In the same way, planning things out keeps you in line with the universe of your life, and having a plan does not mean you’re too rigid. It means your life might be held together with your own type of order.

Plans can always change, be malleable, and mold into something else, but if you have something from the outset that tells you where you’re heading, you don’t end up getting lost most of the time.

To Use a Writing Example

As a writer, I don’t believe in writer’s block, but I think an enormous chunk of writer’s block comes from discovery writing, where you don’t know where you’re heading. You have to write the next sentence and see where things go.

When you plan things out, maybe you’re stuck on chapter three, but you can write chapter twenty at any time.

You’re not forced to write a book from start to finish the way it is read.

A writer can do whatever they want. You’re like a fourth-dimensional being outside the continuum of your own story at that point, jumping in and out in ways that only a master of that universe could do.

Now, we can’t do that in our lives necessarily because time crawls in one direction, day by day, but I do believe planning things out teaches us discipline.

I’ve both written about and advocated for spontaneity in such a way that sometimes I use discovery writing in my stories.

Sometimes I do that, but I find a need to have a plan when it comes to writing my stories because if I don’t, things can go in directions that fizzle out, and subplots might never be resolved.

If you plan the plot in advance, all you have to worry about is getting the words out. Then you can focus on making them pretty or whatever it is you might do.

If I plan the story to the end, my laser-focused rewrites do so much more.

A Structured Discipline

Shifting gears, discipline is something that you learn. You don’t inherently have it, right?

In that way, learning to be a little more rigid in how things play out is actually a boon because you have a set time when you make your bed every day.

A set time when you go out and exercise. You’ll have a set time when you wind down.

No matter what it is you’re attempting, you know you’re always going to be on the clock, on the dot (perhaps not in a drop-top cruising the streets).

Every time that second hand moves is another step toward the next milestone.

When you’re spontaneous with your days, things can get messed up. Maybe you’ll go to work late because you don’t have an alarm clock set, so your plan goes out the window because you want to wake up whenever you want. To be fair, being able to wake up whenever you want is a luxury, but maybe even if you can do that, you should still set an alarm so you have a structure for your day.

If you know every single day at 5:30 in the morning, you must be up and get things done, then your day will flow so much smoother.

It doesn’t work for everyone, and not everybody has to do it that way, but I feel like getting up early teaches you how to have an actual structure in your life.

But speaking frankly, I don’t always follow this. Some days should have freedom, and there are days I wake up late.

Structure comes from planning things out. It does not come from being haphazard and doing everything by the seat of your pants, save for revision and sculpting things afterward if the day’s already been set in motion.

Planning things out helps you in your daily life even when things go awry, because you don’t always know what a day is going to bring, but you’ll have an idea that encapsulates what you know your day should be to work from.

Life is always going to happen to you, and I’m not saying we should try to avoid the cruel mistress of unforeseen events by planning things out because that’s never going to happen.

We’re not God.

But if I know I need to be at a certain place at 12:30 pm or I have a meeting at 1:30, I’m going to make sure, using the structure and discipline I’ve learned, to be early to those things.

Being irresponsible with time is a waste of it many times (but not all loose structure is negative).

Have You Tried Blocks?

An important facet of planning things out has to be blocking things out in chunks of time.

This might be something as simple as: for sixty minutes today, I’ll use the Pomodoro technique to do bursts of tasks and then time myself, whether in the back of my mind or with an actual timer.

That’s how I used to do things when it came to writing.

I would do intense bursts between minor breaks and then keep going for an hour or two, stopping at around three or four hours, depending on how much I had to write.

Now that I do a mixture of dictation and typing far more often, that method is less effective because the sheer number of words you can get out by speaking things into existence is unheard of.

I often think of dictation in the same way someone might write a song and do the vocals on it.

It’s not any less valid. It is still writing, but in a more efficient way to do it.

But going back to the time-blocking idea, block things out in time spans that make sense for the day you’ve planned.

The first four hours of my day are going to be this. The next two hours of my day have meetings. The last three hours of the day are non-negotiable. So I’m going to do all my meetings in that specific span of time, and there is no possible way I will move them out of there because I’ve got other things blocked out for the rest of the afternoon, and that’s a promise you must keep for someone else’s time as well.

Doing things in this manner, you don’t miss anything, and you’re well prepared for the day ahead.

It doesn’t have to be anything fancy either.

You can use a normal Google Calendar if that’s what it takes for you. That’s what I do. A simple calendar. There’s even Clockify, too, if you need something more robust.

You can use a physical planner if that’s more your style because handwriting also has benefits, and the mind-body connection from handwriting is actually quite therapeutic for the mind.

There’ll always be a place for that.

Toss Away the Plan Sometimes

Rigidity also has the option of being avoided at all costs if that’s what you desire to do.

Spontaneity can make beautiful events happen in your life that you never would have decided beforehand, but even in spontaneity, shifting things around can also be helpful for planning things out based on the things you shift. You might plan around events you didn’t see coming.

Even people who like to walk freely don’t have a plan in mind when they start, but the things they start with can end up flexible enough to make a new plan and go in a new direction altogether.

Or if you truly don’t want the plan at all, that’s all right.

Think about it.

Spontaneity does breed surprises. I will give you that.

But planning things out has a structure to it that can’t be beat, so why not mix the two methods to give you a semblance of shape?

No matter what you’re doing, having some sort of overarching framework seems to make things go smoother.

Think about it like a long-term road trip.

If you want to drive from Colorado to California, a spontaneous person would go through the different points and make stops as their heart desired between the two points.

If you avoid rigid roadmaps, then you also have room for spontaneity.

And sometimes the most enjoyable thing to do is to throw out your schedule and coast through the day. Perhaps on a day you have off, you know? I know both ways work.

But this is only what I believe. It doesn’t have to be what someone else believes.

That’s how my brain works, and it doesn’t mean someone else’s brain is going to work that way. I understand we’re all our own people. I often say my way is definitely not the right way. There’s only the right way for you.

I don’t want to give anyone the wrong idea, after all. If your idea is right, let it be right.

Stay Consistent Regardless of the Method

If you don’t normally do things this way, try a schedule out at some point. You might be pleasantly surprised and have a new tool.

If I know I have this many tasks to do in this many hours, it seems to help.

And the more you knock things out and check those things off your list, the more dopamine and reward you get in your brain, so it actually turns things into a little game for yourself.

You can also schedule your fun, too.

Consistency breeds the best results, though.

Try it.

Try it for a week. Try it for two weeks. Try it for a month.

Whatever it may be, block your time out as a test to see if you click with it.

Tell yourself, from this time to this time, I will only do these things, and knock those things off your list.

If you do that daily, weekly, monthly, and yearly, you’ll make it into a habit that will actually save you so much time in the end.

I’m speaking from my experience as a writer, but I believe structure is the key that opens so much more possibility for you.

Because if you carry out the hard work first, everything else becomes easy for you.

Clearly, this doesn’t work in all industries. Obviously, if you’re at a construction job and your boss is yelling at you to jackhammer something, you can’t structure around that. You’ll do what you’re told and there’s no plan in hell that will work.

But if you’re someone who just lets things be, a little planning doesn’t harm your capacity to go back to avoiding them if you so choose.

Give it a shot and see where you end up, though.

You might be ecstatic about a new method of doing things, and streamlining our processes makes for a better life.

But what do I know?

I planned this post out and wrote 2,172 words in ten minutes with some time for edits afterward.

Maybe it works?