Planners come in all sorts of forms, paper, digital, the back of a napkins, and so forth. Companies like Franklin Covey holds seminars to promote their use (and then drain you dry with their ridiculously high priced paper). That’s what I want to talk about today. I think planning is a big waste of time. You may have heard the saying, “Those that fail to plan, plan to fail.” I couldn’t disagree more.
I was first introduced to the concept of planners when I was a young man. A friend of mine happened to go to a Franklin Covey seminar with his dad, and naturally the seminar got him all excited about how much better and meaningful his life would be if he had a planner. He got the insert paper to go with a planner as part of the seminar and bragged about how expensive it was. He was trying to get me into planning as well. Being that I was twelve years old I said to him I didn’t have anything to plan, I knew when I had to go to school and I knew when I was going to play.
Even today, as an adult, I don’t use a planner. I don’t know why anyone needs to. For those of us that are laid back, we don’t worry about it. Maybe we have one or two appointments a week. If they’re really important we’ll jot them down on some scrap paper and leave them in sight, the rest of the week is either work or play, as usual, nothing worth documenting in a planner. I certainly don’t need to plan on going to work, I have to do it, and I know what time I’m supposed to be there. As for play, hell, if I’m not working I’m playing, and I don’t need to plan it.
I will admit that I once worked for a company that required me to use a planner to plan my job duties. I filled it out, and honestly I never referred to it. In fact, the really important appointments I wrote down in a section of the planner separate from the “hour by hour” day sheets. I was relieved when I was no longer required to keep a comprehensive log of my life.
Now I understand some people are just too busy to remember their appointments and they have so many appointments that they need to write them all down. I don’t have any sympathy, and all I can say is that there is more meaning to life than planning everything. My saying is, “Those that fail to plan, have more fun than those who do.” Okay not as catchy as the “supposedly” motivation phrase, but I gave it a shot.