Planning for People Who Don't Like Planning

Having a clear vision for your life and a plan to get there are essential for the life of your dreams. After all, it’s really difficult to hit the target if you don’t know where or what the target is and you’re blindfolded. 

That being said, some people love planning and others don’t. So while there are tons of commerical planners and planning systems on the market that will help you detail every moment of your day in support of your larger goals, there’s not a lot for people who value variety and uncertainty highly in their lives. 

Something I like to do for people who are scared of intense structure is to create a much looser, free-flowing structure that STILL supports what you want in the bigger picture - a planning system for people who are excited by the prospect of uncertainty and variety - people who genuinely don’t want to know what tomorrow may bring. 

It’s super simple and it will help move your life forward while also keeping your days fresh and filled with enough variety so that you don’t get bored.

Here’s what to do: 

1. Break down the spheres of your life. Here’s a usual list: 1) Body/fitness 2) Finances 3) Career 4) Family and relationships 5) Faith and/or community. 
2. Write a list of 5-10 things you could do in support of improving yourself in each of those 5 spheres of life. 
3. You should now have a full capture list of about 25-50 things that will improve and enrich your life if you do them. 
4. When you wake up in the morning, pick from your list based on what sounds good that day. 
5. Be dynamic. If you feel like your family life has been suffering, pull from that list. If you feel like your career is suffering, pull from that list. 
6. That’s it! Enjoy variety and improvement at the same time. 

This is a simple way to keep your life spicy and not be a slave to a planner and a routine. Keep in mind, this is NOT the system for everyone. Some of the highest achievers in the world schedule their lives like clockwork - but those are certainty oriented people.

While we ALL value some sense of certainty and routine, for some people, too much certainty and routine becomes suffocating and breaks their soul. If that’s you, odds are you have given up on planning entirely and are just drifting from thing to thing and hoping things work out for the best. If that’s you then this is who this basic system is for! In other words, this planning system is built for people who want to improve, but still crave the excitement of variety and uncertainty.
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