I caught the end of Mr. Holland’s Opus on tv last night. At one point in the story, Mr. Holland sings John Lennon’s Beautiful Boy to his son – and the song has been going through my head ever since, especially the line about, “Life is just what happens to you while you’re making other plans.”
In preparing for my upcoming time management workshop, I am very focused on plans right now. The workshop itself is all about how to plan and, meanwhile, its execution requires a lot of planning.
Plans. Plans. Plans.
It’s very easy to get caught up in strategy – which feels like doing, but isn’t the same thing. The lists and schedules are necessary, but not the essence of the work. I’m thankful to be reminded that now is what is happening, that this moment is my life – that, for instance, right now the important thing is writing this blog entry, not checking it off my to-do list.
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How do you balance doing and planning, work and strategy? Do they feel like completely separate things or do you feel they are interconnected?
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In developing a more useful and personal time management system over the past few years, my highest criteria has been to create a system that integrates the planning and the doing, each one building on the other in an organic spiral. With practice, that integration has become more and more of a reality for me.
If you’d like to experience that same sense of integration, if you’d like to plan yet remain in the present, if you’d like to organize your calendar and to-do list without it feeling like an interruption of your real work – or true nature – then I invite you to learn more here.
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