I am a planner

I attribute most of my success thus far in my life to my consistent planning. I'm not saying that I am extremely successful, but I would be extremely unsuccessful if I didn't plan things out all the time. This started about my junior year in high school when I really started getting organized. I noticed that my good friend Amanda would keep lists of the things she needed to get done and would cross them off as she went. Amanda was high achieving academically and seemed to have plenty of time for social life, so I started to follow her lead. The only problem is that now I am mildly compulsive. I write down EVERYTHING on a list so I don't forget. I generally have my days planned 1-2 weeks in advance (I can be flexible though!).

These are my current "To Do" lists and as you can see they grow and I tape them to my binder. The best day is when I have crossed everything off my list and I can recycle that piece of paper. Oh- what a feeling. The bottom left is for school projects and you can see that I still have plenty of things to do.

This is the bird's eye view for April (today is the 2nd). See, it's not like crazy or anything. I just need structure. I need a tentative plan. I don't feel like this is obsessive, I feel like it is goal oriented. People ask me "How do you work full-time AND go to grad school full-time?" My answer is "I don't have kids, and I plan". (There's plenty of people that have kids and do more than me, but I have no idea how they do it. Super people, I say. I felt like that disclaimer was necessary.) My friend Laura makes fun of me because I told her that I have every weekend until graduation planned.

Something that I have noticed is that planners and non-planners don't really mesh well. I further believe that the good Lord has a great sense of humor because he allowed me to fall in love with a man who doesn't care for planning. Maybe a few days in advance, but that's it. I believe this will probably be the greatest stressor on our relationship and it will probably never change. Hopefully over time I will learn more patience and he will learn more forward thinking. His success is not attributed to planning at all. I suppose that his success is really just God given raw talent but some of us (myself especially) are not so lucky to remember everything that's coming up. But then again I'm also better at getting good deals than him because I plan ahead.

If you need planning help, just let me know. I find that because I plan, I have more time for leisure and can focus on my friends and family more. There's nothing greater than fellowship. However, if you see me in the grocery store with one of those crazy coupon binders, please set up an intervention. Those ladies spend toooo much time on that. But to each his own I guess.

Happy Good Friday. I think in the future I am going to take a vacation day for Good Friday. Something doesn't feel right about being at work. Don't forget to say a little prayer and thank the Lord for his sacrifice.

Posted in: Being Engaged