Cool of the Day

What is it about planners? I get so excited about buying a new planner every year. There is the fresh paper, the new layouts, the possibility for orderliness, the promise of a bright future filled with productivity and growth. So many things to look forward to.

Then there are also the accessories. Possibly the best part. Stickers, pens, highlighters, tabs, bookmarks, cases to hold the accessories and of course, journals or additional planners to prove beyond doubt that you have an obsession.

Is it a hobby or am ‘I doing too much’?

Now that I have fully embraced that I am a planner enthusiast, planner propaganda (also known as content) has found me. There are lovely podcasts and videos about specific planner brands, scheduling strategies (I won’t call them hacks), and how to think outside of the box of traditional calendaring to make a planner- ing a more fulfilling endeavor. 

There is a good and bad side of finding the corner of the internet where my interest lives. On one hand it’s amazing to know that there are people like me who can think and talk about planners for an ungodly amount of time and that its not strange. On the other hand, it fuels a desire for more “stuff”. A thing I used to obsess about in December is now something I can begin obsessing about in the fall when new releases are announced. And accessories are available all year round so there is nothing keeping me from browsing and collecting more than I can use. 

When something starts making me want more “stuff”, I always begin to examine my motivations. I know its just a planner I am talking about and not a massive fast fashion clothing haul or bad habit. But it does make me wonder, ‘why this thing?’ Why am I so interested in planners that I admittedly do not commit to as much as I would like? To be honest I am much more likely to complete a blank journal full of my everyday notes- more of a cross between a bullet journal and commonplace book- than a January to December planner. 

What if I am literally doing too much?

Recently, a high achieving, highly productive woman that I admire, that loves planners too, had some major life shakeups that forced her to slow down and accept more help than she is used to. Witnessing her shift things around in her life to accommodate the slowness has made me admire her more because I know how hard that is. 

But it brought up another question: is the planner a symptom of the drive to be so productive or a result? Do driven people obsess about things that drive them harder or do they gather tools like planners to help them drive?

Am I hoping a planner will help me reach my unrealistic productivity expectations because asking for real help from others or decreasing those expectations is the harder task?

One study I found reminded me of another pondering I have about using different tools to support normal daily living. I often think, for normal everyday life, we should be able to wake up and live it and thrive. But the older get, there are more things that I need to thrive. Supplements, stretching, meds– things that used to be “nice- to- haves” have become necessities.

I realize now that that is how I see planners too. They are an adorable nice- to- have but I should be able to function well without one. 

Then how much is enough?

The 2023 study titled A field experiment on the effects of weekly planning behavior on work engagement, unfinished tasks, rumination, and cognitive flexibility¹ (Uhlig L , et al) looked at the impact of weekly planning strategies on the wellbeing of workers. It identified 231 participants who had jobs that consisted of cognitively complicated tasks and flexible or unpredictable work conditions. The researchers asked them to plan as they normally would for two weeks and plan in a prescribed way² for 5 weeks, reporting on their work outcomes every week. They found that the prescribed planning behavior led to fewer unfinished tasks and higher cognitive flexibility. Most exciting for me is that it led to less afterwork rumination. They define after work rumination as “persistent, repetitive thoughts about work during leisure time… often accompanied by negative feelings”. The study found that “planning behavior could be an important intervention strategy for employees who struggle with rumination. Setting goals and developing specific plans seems to help individuals mentally disengage from tasks when necessary” (ibid). The researchers admit that there may be less rumination because there are less unfinished tasks, but that does not seem like a bad outcome to me. 

As I looked at the citations of this study and looked for other studies, I found that there are not really any negative things to be said about using planners or a planning strategy. In fact, it is encouraged. Many of the studies are not just about how planning makes a person productive, they also look at how it makes a person feel. For example, how they experience the productivity, how it impacts their rest after productivity is over, and how they feel about their work and themselves. 

Maybe this is just right.

Of course, when I talk about planners I am using them for more than work. They are for the many responsibilities of life like keeping track of appointments, birthdays, deadlines, routines, random notes, and goals. 

Instead of looking down on my planner as a whimsical, colored pen and sticker playground, this study makes me think I should reframe how I use my planner. There are things in life that don’t have a goal that can be tracked or has an endpoint.

Parenting is a series of moments. 

A house has a cycle of unending chores.

We will keep needing dinner planned and cooked. 

But there are goals associated with different parts of my life, including work, that it could helpful to think about, and plan for, each week. Preferably with colored pens and washi tape. 

A planner cannot change who am, but when used correctly could be more than a nice- to- have. They could be a blessing. 

Footnotes

1. Uhlig L, Baumgartner V, Prem R, Siestrup K, Korunka C, Kubicek B. A field experiment on the effects of weekly planning behaviour on work engagement, unfinished tasks, rumination, and cognitive flexibility. J Occup Organ Psychol. 2023 Sep;96(3):575-598. doi: 10.1111/joop.12430. Epub 2023 Feb 17. PMID: 38515981; PMCID: PMC10952538. ↩︎
2. The prescribed planning method consisted of four parts: (1) prioritizing and goal setting- reformulating their most important goal into something specific, measurable, and challenging, but realistic; (2) planning work steps- defining the work steps necessary to reach their goals, including adding deadlines; (3) planning for hindrances- identify a potential hindrance for each work step and define a plan to address this hindrance; and (4) visualization- visualizing situations in which the predicted obstacle arises for each of their work steps and how they would act according to their contingency plan. ↩︎