Are you Planning for Perfection?

00:01 Hi, this is Katie and thank you for joining me on the My Senses, My Space podcast. And this is a podcast about feeling the world intensely, creating time to evaluate your needs and planning your space and life to fit you.
00:14 And today I wanted to talk about planning for perfection or maybe that should be phrased as a question. Do you find yourself planning your activities for the day or the week assuming that it's going to be an ideal situation for them all?
00:35 So, and I laugh because, how often do we have like a perfect day or a perfect week or a perfect month?
00:46 I mean, there is no perfection, right? That's why I'm laughing because there is absolutely no perfection in life. We can feel very lucky sometimes that there aren't things getting in our way and it feels very much like we have low friction days and we have a smile on our face because what we planned
01:07 worked out. But what I want to talk about is how do we actually make plans then if that's kind of our golden goose, right?
01:20 The thing that is just so hard to achieve. How do we look at our lives and plan for things to go wrong without thinking the worst case scenarios, right?
01:35 So for me, I would always leave at the last moment. I would say and because I have I I think very black and white sometimes and think like well, things should have gone this way.
01:55 It's always gone this way or it's says on a map. Whether it's Google or Apple or whatever mapping service you're using it said that I was going to be there in that amount of time.
02:08 Why and then I I go proceed on that route and it doesn't work out that way. Why is that like?
02:16 I have to say the last 10 years are very different from that but I would say in my 30s, 20s and 30s this is how I operated was like.
02:27 Even when there weren't mapping apps out there I would time like okay this is the time from my front door to my work front door.
02:35 Why is it causing problems today? Well, things come up right? Traffic is a big one and I'm here in the Seattle area and traffic, what I learned up here was traffic can pop up at any moment's notice and there doesn't have to be a why.
02:54 It's a very you know hilly city with lakes in the middle of the city. And lots of water and so there can be these really congested routes to go around those points.
03:10 And so it just, if one little point gets congested and the cars flow back up onto another point, it's, it just causes it and it can be from a traffic accident.
03:24 It can be from an event. It can be from anything. And so yeah, when I moved here, it was definitely eye-opening to go, oh wait, there's traffic today.
03:35 Why is there? I don't know. Doesn't matter, right? It really doesn't matter what the source is. I had to start adjusting.
03:42 My perceived idea of what travel takes. And I've talked about this before where it's like, okay, plan, you know, not only getting out the front door, but getting there and then parking and then getting up to the office that you're going to or wherever you're going to.
04:03 But I also, this is kind of adjacent to that where you're actually thinking about your week and you're thinking ahead going, okay, I have this appointment this day and this appointment this day.
04:15 But that's if, you know, your family doesn't have anything unexpected to pop up. That's if the people that you are involving in those appointments, whether it's a doctor who's running late, a friend who gets stuck in traffic to or needs to bump everything an hour forward.
04:36 It, it just depends on all these other dependencies, right? Once we start. Seeing all these dependencies going on and going, Oh, well, my plans that either if they're in your Google calendar on a paper planner, think of them more as like rubber bands so that each one of those has these kind of stretchy
05:01 points and how I really started seeing all these stretchy points is because I looked at my past and was making notes on my past times, my past weeks, months, and noticing that, okay, this whole week had this move forward, this move backward, this.
05:23 It's cancelled and whatever I was thinking was that ideal never really happened and being okay with that. So again, I am one who wants to like go, okay, this is going to happen now.
05:38 So I am going to count on it and I am a number six. On the Enneagram and I am a planner.
05:47 I love to look ahead and see, you know, what could possibly come up during this day that could alter my plans.
05:55 And I've even found in this last year, no matter what I could think up, something else would pop up entirely.
06:03 So whenever it was something that I couldn't control, it had absolutely no control over, whether it was meeting a doctor, whether it was calling a friend.
06:15 There were so many different things that would come up that really surprised me. I was just like, oh, wow. I had never thought that, and like, one was a doctor's appointment.
06:28 They're like, oh, they're running about 45 minutes late. They were stuck in traffic this morning. And I'm like, oh, wow.
06:34 Well, I'm here and I get to wait an hour. Yay. So, and knowing that we're human through all that, right?
06:43 All of all of us are human. We're all dealing with this. Sometimes we can feel very alone thinking, oh, I, I'm the only one having all this bad luck, but no, it's all everyone, ever, all of us.
06:57 And especially if we don't have like a, an assistant right by our sides, you know, like celebrities who have someone.
07:04 Controlling their schedule from morning till night and adjusting everything along the way. And you see, at least I do in the movies and shows, like they're constantly adjusting things too and trying to piece things in as well.
07:19 They can plan as well as they can, but then you have to be flexible. Everyone needs kind of. This rubber band thinking of like, okay, this is going to move up or it's going to expand and take more time than we thought.
07:33 It can be that our child has some kind of surprise assignment that they bring home and we have to do it that evening.
07:42 It can be, you know, a family. Remember who gets sick and needs support. It can be anything financial that pops up and you're like, oh wait, I need to bring in some more cash.
07:55 So I need to put more shifts on my schedule. So many things can just happen, right? It just ha happens.
08:24 And so when we thi travel time, how can I? S my time like here at home I have appointments with c buffering my time in betwe buffer time that I need to have a little bit of time to do my things.
08:46 How can I make that go a little more smoothly for myself if I get there extra early and I just I have some videos to watch on my phone.
08:56 It can feel very uncomfortable for some people to get somewhere early. It can feel like, oh, what do I do with myself?
09:06 . Because sometimes that means having a little alone time with yourself and that part can be scary. But when I look at my whole week, I try not to have more than like two appointments on any day.
09:21 Like whether it's a health appointment and a client like that. That to me is enough because I have so many other things to fill up like the cracks in between like all the little times, like all the sand in the jar.
09:36 I think there's that, that little exercise where you put all your rocks in first and then the sand fills up around him.
09:43 So I also always have stuff I can be doing. Always. I, I am one though that I'm, I'm never bored because I always feel like there's other things I can do, but that's not for everyone.
09:58 That can feel very worrisome. That can feel like a huge burden. So when I go to an appointment early and I do have some time, I always.
10:06 Only bring like one or two things. Like, do I want to jot some things down in my work notebook? Do I want to watch a YouTube video or do I just want to browse some social media because, you know, it's okay to consume that if I know it's only going to be like five minutes, at least for myself.
10:27 There are moments I go scrolling for quite a while, but knowing that if I have this finite time, sometimes that's even a better way of jumping on and off social media because you have that kind of said period of time.
10:43 So it's not about, you know, thinking that you're unlucky. It's not about thinking I can't plan my weeks and my days.
10:53 I'm frustrated by that. There are skills to learn to to see how some things can be very predictable for yourself, but then other things there's just no saying.
11:07 What can happen? Absolutely none. I'm trying to think of something lately that I was just really surprised. I was like, oh, I'm going to meet up with this person and it's going to go this way.
11:20 And it just completely fell apart. Not on anybody's fault, but it was just something that I hadn't even thought. And it was more than like just meeting up with a friend.
11:34 Those plans fall through all the time. It's actually, and I'm just like, yay, I have an afternoon. I can go to other things.
11:42 But there was something that I just, anyway, I'll have to share it on social media or somewhere. Maybe in my newsletter.
11:50 But I think it just helps to understand where can I plan out my week and understand that these things can take more time, can disappear, can move around.
12:07 It can be rescheduled without too much problems for myself. And it's not about just having everything open so that you're just waiting on other people because you have a life to live too.
12:23 But knowing that you have boundaries around, well, I could do it this day, but if they reschedule, we'll just bump it to next week.
12:31 And that's all we can do. Now there are time sensitive things, but I think for a majority majority of times, there can be more flexibility than you think.
12:44 So along with looking at your week. It's also, I've found beneficial to set up, especially if it's an early appointment or something I'm doing right in the morning.
12:58 How can I prepare for that the night before? What can I lay out, lay out, like can I lay out clothes?
13:04 Can I get my purse ready? Do I need paper? Do I need to take something with me to get to somebody?
13:13 Do I, what do I need to prepare? Is there some way to check in? Is there some way to email someone and remind them so that when I get there and they forget well hopefully they don't forget.
13:27 But when, I go, I can know that we kind of confirm the day before. So it's not just kind of out of the blue, because so many people forget.
13:35 And that's okay. Like I would rather touch base more often and say, hey, are you still up for a meeting tomorrow?
13:45 Then to just kind of show up and go, wait, they forgot. You know, I don't know. That's what I learned over time.
13:52 So for me, I let go of planning for perfection And learn to plan for my life and the way I live and use skills that I could form.
14:08 To look at my life differently and I help a lot of people figure this out. I like going, well, what are your stretchy points?
14:17 How can you prepare the night before? How can you do these things? Even if it's really hard to do so, especially with ADHD or, autism.
14:30 It can be a real challenge to practice over time getting ready for these things and finding the time to fit everything into your schedule that you want to fit.
14:43 And I love helping people with that. So get in touch if you would like some help with that. But until next time, thank you for joining me on the My Senses, My Space Podcast.