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Writer's pictureHiba Haddad

The obsessive planner

Updated: Aug 27, 2022


That’s definitely a very fitting title for my life at the moment.


I am one of those people who has numerous organizers lying around the place: one for work, one for my personal goals, one for my writing, and another for my fitness goals. I’m pretty sure I’ll be purchasing a few more and adding new “goals” accordingly.


And yes, I know they’ve created hundreds of apps to help you organize your life, but I’m still old-school that way. Nothing is quite as satisfying to me as writing down goals, and crossing them out once done.


Planning is the ideal way to reach your goals. Otherwise, they are just dreams in your head, with no real hope of materializing.


Or so we are always told.

I can tell you that my experience this year has shown me that there is such a thing as overplanning.


What starts out as excitement to take over the world in the beginning of the year, slowly grows, until you feel the need to plan every hour, every minute and every second of your day- for fear that if you don’t, it won’t count.


Time that is unaccounted for is viewed as “a waste”.


Your to-do-lists grow bigger and bigger, you start committing to tens of things a day, and guess what, pretty soon, when you are unable to keep up with all the things you told yourself you’d do, you will start feeling like a failure.


But that is exactly the moment when you need to step back, reassess, readjust, and start over.


You need to decide what your top priorities are, and what is absolutely necessary to achieve them. You don’t need to do everything everyone is doing, because guess what, their dreams are different to yours.


If you want to have a healthier lifestyle, your workout approach is not going to be similar to your friend who wants to run a marathon. Your friend might be into meditation to clear their head and destress, but you might prefer long walks instead.


There is no “one size fits all” approach, and therefore, when you are working on your own plan, focus on things that make sense for you, and not on doing everything.


This will take some trail and error, but once you get into a rhythm that works for you, you will become unstoppable!


Plan your priorities and map out how you want to get there, but also make room for “life”. Set realistic goals, but also allow yourself room for spontaneity. Do not lose out on living your best life, do not become an “obsessive planner”.


If something stops working, its ok, just readjust.


When you start focusing on a few things that you love and commit to doing them consistently, you will soon be crossing those goals off your list again!




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