Why I Stopped Planning

I suddenly realised that my plan had a plan. I spent so much time planning my week that my plan became my workflow. Work is not being completed simply because I am using up all of that time planning. What is the point of a plan if it is impossible to execute it ? How often do we find new ways to procrastinate our way through our days and weeks and who knows perhaps even months and years of our lives and never actually have anything to show for the time spent? Is this a me thing or does the rest of the world also have this problem?

For quite some time now I have been telling myself that I have been productive, that I've had a good day only to find that at the end of the month , the real work has been lagging, I just haven't been able to get on top of the tasks that keep my business running. I hadn't been able to understand what actually is going on. I'm still getting to work at the same time, I still finish my day at the same time, I'm not taking any additional breaks or even leaving to do more errands than normal, I don't have more meetings that I had before so just what is going on ? Am I slower at my tasks , have I missed something ? I don't think I'm chatting to co workers any more or less than usual.

So I set out to analyse what I am doing now that I wasn't doing before and that Is when it all became so clear, the difference between then and now is planning. I thought that I was being more productive , that all my plans and beautiful bullet point journals with their stunning designs and colour co ordination were the answer to me becoming such a productive worker when in actual fact …Hello!!!! Earth to brain cell. This was the very thing that prevented me from being productive.

Procrastination can come in many forms, do not be fooled into thinking that busy work is productive work. Hiding behind yet another list does not make you more efficient , it steals your time away from the real job in hand. I am not suggesting that you throw away your to do list, we all need some way to focus on all the tasks we need to get done in any given period but for me another new planner is not the answer. I was trying to squeeze too many activities into my 24 hour period on paper, yet my reality was , I was not getting anything done. I may have started a gazillion of tasks and tricked my head into believing that I was achieving greatness.

The truth is that it would be impossible for me to get through the mountain of tasks and goals that I had set myself, no one could have achieved what I was setting for myself and what was the result ? Failure. Worse still because I felt that I had not got to where I needed to be I then became overwhelmed and that led to procrastination which in the end led to more overwhelm and then depression which took me down a new rabbit hole of self disappointment and listening to my inner self villain telling me how this is not for me, that I am not capable of creating what I want out of my life.

Back to the drawing board, except I didn't listen to myself, I did what I always do and I watched days worth of youtube videos on productivity, I read books on the subject and I even joined facebook groups in an effort to find out what I was doing wrong, what did I need to learn, what had I missed . The truth of the matter is what I missed was me . I was asking the wrong questions of myself. Instead of listening to me and working our what I needed, I was invested in believing that everyone else knew better than I did. My self sabotaging personality permitted me to believe that I could not work this dillema out for myself, that I needed validation.

But where could I get this validation? I had drained all of the possible gurus and professionals that I could use freely, yet none of them satisfied me. Did I really need someone to take me by the hand sit me down and draw this out sentence by sentence? Surely not.

So, I stopped. I turned the screens off, I closed instagram, deleted pinterest, no more you tube , no Pc and closed my mind to the noise of my inner gremlins who were screaming at me . One empty notepad and one pen, a chair in the sunshine and no distractions and asked the correct questions of myself . What am I trying to achieve with this planner? I suddenly realised that I wasn't achieving anything with my planner, my planner is full of trackers and daily spreads, future logs and weekly plans, meal plans and savings plans, why do I have all that stuff designed and what have I achieved with them?

I don't need any of those spreads. I have them in my planer because they are trending on social media and I think they look cool. That is fine if I just want something to pass some time with , they look cute , artistic and creative, but they did not serve me in any way. I finally decided that I don't need those beautiful spreads. I need a todo list of all the things I need to achieve in a given time frame , a brain dump if you like. From that list I decided that I would plan to do one task per day from start to finish, nothing else in the day matters but that one task, that is my focus. Once I committed to that plan, everything changed.

I actually managed to move on to the next days task because I was no longer overwhelmed by how many things I needed to complete in a day. Focusing on one main task actually helped me to move more quickly through my to do list. I no longer start and stop tasks which prevents me from completing anything and leaving myself exhausted and drained. I am now focused on the now , this moment, and in this moment I can not multi task , I give 100% of me to this one task no matter what it is, if I am lucky enough to complete it then I can look to my next priority.

Life is too short to be exasperated by lists and tasks and planners and overwhelmed by the thoughts of how much I need to get done today. One tiny step at a time, I am one person, I can not change the world alone, nor can I complete every task alone, so what I can I am learning to delegate. Nothing is more important than my mental health, my sanity and myself .

I would not overload my family or my co workers to the point that they are overwhelmed with too much to handle so why would I do that to myself? The real question is why would you do that to yourself? Don't you deserve to be respected by you? Would you overwhelm the person you love with too many tasks ? Don't do it to yourself either. The lesson learned today is that I am worth my time and I deserve some of that time to be me, to love who I am and to acknowledge my self worth. Being overwhelmed and exhausted is not treating myself with love .

Xx Lei

BE FAITHFUL TO THAT WHICH EXISTS WITHIN YOURSELF - Andre Gide