Plannering

Why is it that some of us spend lots of money, time, and energy on the act of planning, on planning for planning, and on planners themselves?  

The short answer is that I've got a lot going on and I need to keep track of who is doing what when and for how many pennies.

The real answer involves something between "I really like stickers," and "It's a manifestation of cognitive labor that women are constantly asked to do and I might as well have nice pens to do it with."

I really do like stickers, though. While my sticker collection is nowhere near as voluminous or organized as it was when I was in grade school, I have enough to be going on with and a place to put them. I'm not going to psychoanalyze why I like stickers. I just do. Stickers are great. Some of them are shiny.

For me, a sometimes helpful side effect of having OCD is that I'm super good at organizing things and physically writing stuff down in my own hand helps me visualize where all the pieces go. Usually, there's a daily to do list, a running list of projects I've got going on, a list of this week's errands, and a list of things I need to remember to go out and buy. Fortunately, my planner is a place where OCD has taught me to organize information, but not a place where OCD brain takes over and tries to organize things within an inch of my life. Often, my planner is a place to doodle and take notes about how my day or week went. Today I'll be writing "Sick Day" over most of the morning chunk and not worry about it. Some days are just like that. Yesterday, I did a "Ta Da!" list instead of to do list and wrote down all the things I'd done instead of all the things I intended to do. I'm inconsistent, is what I'm saying, but I know I have a framework upon which to build tomorrow or next week or next month. I write myself motivational notes, I draw pictures, sketch out diagrams of quilt blocks, keep track of which Delphic Maxims I've already done, and so on. I have approximately a bazillion things in my head and having them on paper helps me deal with them all.

I could do this with a spiral notebook, sure, but my Passion Planner has a structure and layout that I like as well as questions to help me be a better me and excellent motivational quotes that get me thinking. Ultimately, that's what I want: to be a better me. A planner isn't a magic bullet that will launch me to success and awesomeness, but it can be a good tool to help me keep from forgetting that I need soy milk and dog food or that this one has practice and that one has an appointment and I really want to finish that thing I'm working on. I'm the one who has to remember the things, sdo if I'm going to do the cognitive labor, I'm gonna do it in shiny marker and unicorn stickers.

We also have Star Wars sheets on our bed because what the &$#% is the point of being a grownup if you have to give up something that brings you some joy. If I have a shiny rainbow unicorn sticker to help me remember to pay my mortgage, my mortgage still gets paid.

Check out here and here for answers to this same question from my two best buds.