How I Became a Planner

Photo by Emma Matthews Digital Content Production on Unsplash

There are essentially two kinds of people; first kind who like to plan everything, and a second kind who prefer spontaneity over certainty. For the most part of my life, I have been in the latter camp.

There is a certain kind of personality which it takes to meticulously organize things in life and plan ahead. It is a lot easier to be spontaneous and go with the flow. However, for the planners out there; it would be extremely difficult to switch to spontaneity. There is a certain amount of control planners feel they have in life which they would seemingly lose if they became spontaneous.

In all my endeavors up until recently, I was the go with the flow kind of person. Planning seemed like a chore and I place no value on it. My philosophy was that life can throw you into situations which you can never plan for, what then? Most of the time, I have found out that life hardly ever goes “according to plan”.

My wife on the other hand is a planner. She believes in having a plan even if we don’t execute it. I find it endearing that I have acquired some of her beliefs overtime, especially with respect to planning in life.

Planning didn’t come naturally to me. The first time I noticed, I was into planning was when she told me that I had planned one of our trips well and she enjoyed it. I didn’t even know I was planning until we were done with the trip and she said she had fun. I must confess, after that I have put in meticulous effort in planning all our vacations.

In fact, our New York trip was so meticulously planned that we almost had time slots for each activity.

Me with some fauna we find in Arizona at the American Museum of National History

For instance, “we have to be at the museum before 10 AM so we can go see everything till the afternoon. And then at 6 we have our slot at the Distillery/Chocolate Factory”.

The time slots to see attractions at the right time paired with the race to get on the next subway train created an unparalleled adventure. In those five days we walked over 10 miles everyday. It was tiring, but definitely a trip of a lifetime. What baffles me is that we didn’t even see all the places. However, we made it a point to see the…