Have you planned today?
If you did, how do you feel? Are you calm and energized?
If you did not, how do you feel? Harried, distracted, or lethargic?
Obviously, you can have a good day without planning the day.
Story time. I remember one of my favorite days in elementary school was field day. We spent almost the entire day outside. There were games, and activities, feats of skill, strength, or speed. I played, had fun, goofed off with my friends. It was one of those days where I came home and told my mom “That was the best day ever!”. Elementary school kids have one of those about every two weeks.
But this one stuck with me. I still remember it today.
I started that story because my first memory of it was that it was a wonderful day that didn’t start with a plan.
Guess what, I was wrong.
As I wrote about the day I remembered something that I didn’t include in my short retelling above.
Field day was organized so that every kid had a sheet listing all the activities. As you did them, you could check them off. Getting enough check marks meant you got a cool treat at the end of the day.
So, well, that story failed to make my point. I had a plan that ordered my behavior.
But honestly, I do believe you can have a good day if you’re fully present and just enjoy each moment as it comes.
But it’s hard.
If you think back on the best days in your life, I bet you’ll find that many of them were inadvertently planned or organized in some way.
The inverse is not quite as true.
The worst days aren’t necessarily, or always, or even usually, days that you didn’t plan.
The worst days are days where the chaos overcomes the order and wipes you out.
Sometimes that chaos comes from outside, as when something horrible happens.
A bad driver causes a fender bender while you’re out running errands. A sprinkler main breaks or a toilet backs up. A loved one dies.
Planning the day, the week, or the month won’t prevent that. External chaos is always a potential threat.
But sometimes the disorder comes from within.
Your fears about failure get the best of you, and you avoid them by watching Netflix all day. You walk into the kitchen after waking up, see that your dishes are not done. Then you take care of them, but are late for work. After missing an important meeting, you try to get some report written up but you’re so worried about your performance that you can’t focus. All because you didn’t do the dishes the night before.
When that’s the case, spending a few minutes to order your thoughts for the day can do wonders.
No, it won’t magically make you fearless in the face of your weaknesses. It won’t turn you into a superstar overnight.
But it will make it just a bit easier to do the right thing.
To push through the fear or the anxiety.
To do the drudge work that will set you up for success down the road.
To order your life, not just your mind.