15 April 2021: IRL Plantser

Time-management has never been one of my strong suits. I'm caught somewhere between the perpetual workaholic and the procrastinator, making for an interesting result: someone who piles on the work and then struggles to get it all done.

Ironically, procrastinators are often perfectionists because the pressure of having to do something perfectly leads to them putting off the task because they don't want to mess it up. I may not be a perfectionist—good enough is often good enough—but the pressure of needing to complete all my tasks will often lead me to put it off because I don't have the self-discipline.

In a way, I'm like if you put a cookie in a jar; you can still open the jar and grab the cookie. I can make a schedule, do all the things to stay organized, but I can still just not do the task I've assigned myself. It's so much easier to not do things than it is to do them.

However, I'm trying. With all the goals I want to achieve, there's little wiggle room for procrastination, so I decided to try something different.

Due to The Writer Community on Instagram, I've started making monthly and weekly goals for myself, hoping to keep myself motivated to complete my tasks and hold myself accountable. It has been working, but I've still been overwhelmed, so now I'm on a three-week alternating schedule, where each week, I focus on either writing, editing, or podcast editing. I can work on other things, yes, but the majority of my focus is meant to be on the main task for the week. This way, I have more guidance when it comes to setting my monthly and weekly goals, and I also don't end up procrastinating on specific tasks for endless amounts of time (like the editing project).

So far, it's been working. Week 1 was podcast editing, which went great; week 2 is writing, and I'm keeping up with my tasks so far. Next week, I'll be on an editing week, then the following week is a podcast editing week again.

Here's the thing: I'm not just a plantser in fiction, I'm a plantser in life. I may have certain things in mind, but it's a wild ride to get there and sometimes things go off the rails. It just helps to have some sort of idea of where you're trying to go, even if the map is incomplete.

I've got my map, so let's see where I end up.