Bismillah ir Rahman ir Raheem,
Assalam alaikum wr wb,
Who here is good at planning? Anyone out there like it?
No, I don’t want a list of tips and tricks. No, I don’t want a pep talk. Because I’ve already received one. Probably from you, your friends or your mentors. I’ve already put money, time and energy into planning merchandise.
Don’t get me wrong; I believe the hype. I know why planning is important.
Planning lets you:
- Get an aerial view of your life.
- Prioritize the most important aspects first
- Make maximum use of your resources.
- Lay out an actionable schedule.
- Deal with crises effectively.
But for so many reasons, the negatives are far outweighing the positives.
Planning is making me miserable because:
- I can never do everything I want to.
- It reminds how out of control my life is rather than giving it some control.
- It reminds me of my failures
- It reminds me of all the people I’m missing.
- It reminds me of how far away I am from being the person I want to be.
I know this is simply a perspective issue. That if I could see the glass half-full, I would realize how blessed I am.
Blah blah blah. I already know this. I wish I could flip a switch. But I can’t.
What I mean is that it doesn’t matter how grateful I am for five minutes or ten minutes or even 15 minutes of a day. My beliefs matter. And those take time to change.
I imagine my negativity is what’s making me tired and it’s probably what made my mother so gravely ill. But that’s a subject for another blog post.
I’ve procrastinated my weekly review for two weeks now. I keep telling myself that I’ll carve out some time on a Friday afternoon, Monday morning, Tuesday night…it’s not been happening. I’ve been too terrified of the pain.
And I’m rather tired of pain, you know? I want something for work for once in my life.
I’ve been trying to plan properly for years. I started with Anthony Robbins and now I’m onto GTD. Robbins tried the inspiring tactic. GTD has been trying the tactical adult, less-play-more-work way.
Neither has worked for me yet.
I’ve just realised something. Both methods are majorly word-heavy. And I’m more visual than I realize. For a writer.
I realized this because recently I was trying to track the subplots in my screenplay. I thought I would simply write down the applicable conflicts beneath each character’s name in a boring old list.
Somehow I decided to do it differently. I decided I’d mind-map on a piece of paper. It worked much better. I was excited to get to work and excited to see how each character connected to the other in a web. That’s the way life is, isn’t it?
I’m going to get more visual to make my weekly planning sessions easier, less stressful and more enjoyable. I’m going to use some mind-mapping software, maybe make a vision board for my life, set up some inspirational mP3s or videos to watch every week Insha Allah.
I’ll try to make it different. Less about words, much more about pictures, webs, movies, visions.I’ll try not to put as much pressure on myself to get it right. It’s important to be the best person I can be, rather than do everything that I can do. Because, as I’ve found out, that’s impossible.
I’ll let you know how it goes and what tools I’m using.
Assalam and alaikum and Fee Amanillah,
The Happy Muslimah.
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