FRIDAY ONE THREE I've read several good articles recently urging more and better better planning in each and every project we undertake to do. We can all readily see that need and I, personally, have problem with one step: knowing when to stop "planning" and to take to "doing."
I find that to have been a flaw in my planning plan for years. It has haunted me more than I like to admit. I've always been practicing and seldom performing. That's bad.
Much that we do each day as we go about our living seems to be decided by forces outside of our control - Time, for instance, the Relative Ease with which a particular thing can be done, the weather outside or the the humidity inside... that sort of thing.
At night, I have found myself, when I am unable to get back to sleep to be able to get drowsy by "planning" precisely what I intend to do the next morning. It can be a deadly dull routine. The things I plan are usually physical in nature - such as working a specific area of the garden or of the yard.Very seldom do conditions allow me to get the if I were back in condition to do so. That one has served me well over many years. It was good "therapy" , I found. By setting gardening goals I laid off a work plan for the next morning .
In recent years, as I have slowed "up" or "down" or physically, I have gradually learned to replace physical plans with mental ones. I can now set a writing work plan for the next morning and doing so serves me in different ways, too. I feel that it ,too, mcan be called "good therapy". Deep down, I have to admit I could do so much better in so many thing if I did, indeed, plan ahead and work toward specific goals. I awaken with a sense of having accomplished some planning in my mind, but it very seldom carries over into practical physical change. When it does, however, the results are excellent. If, by chance, I do recall my plans during the night, I actually get specific work done because of it. I keep a small clipboard with paper and pencil at my bedside and jot down reminders of "things to do" for the next day. When I can read my notes, it helps.
We are all aware, I'm sure of the wisdom of "taking time to smell the roses." Life should not be "all work and no play." For that very reason, I find that much of my "planning" is really "dreaming". It is good to dream because it is planning with potential; a promise of betterment in Tomorrow's activities and, in a way, we are, in doing so, setting up goals for attainment - however high or grand.
Much of my planning is, I think, based on my interpretation of a word-of-wisdom my Mother used to use with us in a effort to teach us basics of housekeeping. "Always leave very room just a little bit better than your found it.!" If every member of a family follows that simply, easy rule it cancels the need for "Spring Cleaning", for "Getting-Ready for Company", for "Here Comes The Preacher!"and a host of other such household emergencies.
It applies quite aptly to other aspects of our living, as well. If we plan our every hourly room so that it makes the area better than it was when we entered it, we're making progress without even trying.
Today - Friday the 13th of May 2005, is a good day to remember that attempts to rely on luck, happisstance, or any voodoo-ish system is a waste of valuable time and effort.
A.L.M. May 13, 2005 [c636wds]
