Part two is here.
Yesterday, I shared a challenge my friend has with planning. She spends hours trying to make sure her plans are perfect in order to optimize her time.
Which of course, means she’s not optimizing her time.
But on to another challenge she has.
Part of her attempts to optimize her time involved balancing the week’s work across multiple days.
By itself, this makes complete sense. You go through your plan, put stuff on your daily ticklers based on how full your days are, so that you can get everything done.
Angst
But for her, it’s more complicated than that. You see, if she creates a daily plan, she spends the rest of the day feeling angst over the plans that aren’t completed.
And guess what? Things never go according to plan.
Even worse – they only rarely deviate in a way that means you have more time available. Nope, usually your plans will change and usually they’ll change by taking longer than you thought.
You’ll get done less than you hoped to.
Again, that’s fine, by itself. But if it really screws up your mental state, because you feel like a failure, then there goes any chance of having a good day.
It’s all about expectations. So expect the changes. Welcome them.
And adjust.
Because if you don’t – if you can only feel angst when the plans change – then you’ll get stuck optimizing your plans.
You’ll get stuck spending hours on them, just to avoid adjusting them in the moment.
Other Benefits
Once you give up the angst over not getting everything done, you find other hidden benefits.
Over time, you’ll naturally get better at estimating how much work things will take, so you’ll plan better.
You’ll find it easier to be spontaneous.
And if you’re naturally spontaneous, you’ll be able to do it without nagging feelings that you’re dropping the ball on something important. Just check your plans, adjust, and know that you’ll still remember and get to the important stuff in time. If necessary, you’ll know when to tone down your spontaneity because it will get you in trouble.
So give up the angst. Your future self will thank you.