Are you someone who plans their day out? Or do you prefer allowing the day’s events to unfold and seeing where they take you?

For me, I cannot be truly happy about a day without a plan.

It probably has to do with my hectic, extra-curricular activity filled upbringing, but it is difficult for me to feel content with a day’s events without having made progress in the majority of the following categories: work, studies, fitness, and my various pastimes. When I was a child and I hated summer vacation because I loved the structured day that a normal school day and after school activities created for me. As a working adult, I don’t have summer vacations, but I don’t like the weekends. For me, it’s just a really long stretch of time that I try my best to fill with my activities just so that I can go back to the structure that the work week gives me. To avoid feeling like the weekend was a waste of 48 hours, I need to plan out what I will be studying, reading, and writing. Needless to say, I get a lot done. However, my husband and other family members comment on my incessant need to be doing something, that I find myself wondering if I’m missing out on something that the rest of the human race seems to look forward to.

I tried not planning to do anything on a weekend once. No studying, no writing, no educational reading, no exercising, no errands, just doing whatever my husband did whenever he did it. Throughout the day I felt anxious and slightly irritated that nothing was getting done. I found myself overcome by the deep feeling of stagnation that I found stifling. I ended the day feeling unaccomplished and thoroughly un-relaxed. And that was the last time I tried to out the “no plan is the plan” approach to my day.

Perhaps there’s some sort of deep-seated psychological reason to why I feel the need to always be working on something, whether its my schooling, learning a skill, writing something, or whatever, but if it makes me feel happy and fulfilled at the end of the day then it must be fine.

What about you? Do you plan your days out like me? Or no?