{"id":3569,"date":"2016-12-16T23:00:07","date_gmt":"2016-12-16T23:00:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/?p=3569"},"modified":"2016-12-17T16:50:50","modified_gmt":"2016-12-17T16:50:50","slug":"when-you-dont-like-planning","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/?p=3569","title":{"rendered":"When You Don’t Like Planning"},"content":{"rendered":"
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When Jen asked I join her Planner Perfect movement (okay, \u201cmovement\u201d might be a little dramatic, but what else do you call thousands of women coming together to map out and change their lives?), I was hesitant. We\u2019re sisters, and we may look a lot alike, but in many ways we have very different personalities. Just like our mom, Jenny has always planned her life. In the early days, it was her way of managing her house filled with children, homeschooling and her passion for art, cooking and baking. Now it\u2019s become a way of seeing her dreams realized and helping women do the same.<\/p>\n

Me? Planning? Eh. Not so much.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve never been a planner. I\u00a0never liked it. When my mom and sister called me up to \u201cplan\u201d a family holiday like Thanksgiving, I always tuned out. Why are we talking about who\u2019s making the stuffing three weeks in advance? Besides, I didn\u2019t have to write it down \u2013 I could just call one of them and ask them what we talked about a few days before the event while scanning the aisles of Whole Foods. What\u2019s the big whoop?<\/p>\n

Well, there\u2019s lots of whoops, actually. Things have changed. I\u2019ve seen the planning light. Because, now \u2013 I don\u2019t have the luxury not to<\/i>.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m a humor writer who freelances for large publications, run my own website, and I\u2019m currently writing a book. Oh, and um \u2013 I have a newborn and a two year old. I\u2019ve officially lost my mind.<\/p>\n

If I don\u2019t plan, it all slips through my fingers like sand. My day becomes chaos that I put together with scotch tape, in the moment, minute by minute. I may get things done, like meeting a writing deadline, but there\u2019s no vision, no path \u2013 no real goal being reached. I\u2019m changing diapers and kissing owies and yelling things like \u201cFor the love of Peter, Paul and Mary! Get out of my office and where did you find that knife?!\u201d intermittently while putting a half-assed post up on my website. There\u2019s no intention and little inspiration. I juggle 10 balls and drop 7. I may remember to pick some of them up, but often times a few just roll away never to be seen again.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s not a recipe for success, that\u2019s a recipe for disaster. Becoming the woman I\u2019m intended to be shouldn\u2019t be so manic. And if I\u2019m not careful, it could all become so overwhelming that I simply give it up. Sitting around watching TV while my dreams pass by like clouds is not an option.<\/p>\n

So I\u2019m a believer now. I plan. I map. I meditate on my goals. Some days, a ball or two may be dropped, I\u2019m only human. But I\u2019m going somewhere \u2013 forward. And I have my beautiful books to help me. It\u2019s like my subconscious suddenly tangible in pages I can flip and touch and work to better my life.<\/p>\n

And my husband and babies like me a lot better when I\u2019m not running around like my life is some damn fire drill.\u00a0 <\/span>So that\u2019s a plus.<\/p>\n

If you\u2019re like me, where this whole planning, mapping thing just doesn\u2019t come totally natural \u2013 but you love it and you want it in your life, then we\u2019re in this together. We can keep each other accountable and encourage each other along the way.<\/p>\n

And who knows, maybe we can help each other when the balls drop. And I totally didn\u2019t mean that the way it sounded.<\/p>\n

xoxo<\/p>\n

Anna Lind Thomas<\/a><\/p>\n

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When Jen asked I join her Planner Perfect movement (okay, \u201cmovement\u201d might be a little dramatic, but what else do you call thousands of women coming together to map out and change their lives?), I was hesitant. We\u2019re sisters, and we may look a lot alike, but in many ways we have very different personalities. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3560,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[950],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3569","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-learning-how-to-plan","8":"entry","9":"one-third"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3569"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3574,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3569\/revisions\/3574"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3560"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3569"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3569"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/plannerperfect.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3569"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}