Do you plan things Months/Years in advance?

Post Reply New Topic

I was thinking for this summer (June something) Me/friend go see Prince of Persia&eat at Red Robin July (go see Last Airbender) and August (She can help me set up my schedule for course work) For September (Her Bday take her out to eat buy her a gift) October MAYBE do a Halloween/costume party type thing (I'll have to ask her parents about this idea SHE said parents would say NO but that's a "party" how about a hangout/gathering of friends (I know her family well so we'll see) Lastly November Me/her go Black Friday shopping (BUT I spend the night Thanksgiving we get up early go shopping) Yes I've planned the next 6 months. Oh and for years I think it'd be awesome if I save about $1500 and went on a trip to NYC again with this friend Summer 2012 (not next summer want to see how money goes/college then save some up and go summer 2012) LOL!

I try to plan stuff like graduate school, how I'll pay for it, what will I do after that, etc, but not the sort of things you're talking about. I used to plan stuff like that, trips with friends and such. Now I try to plan stuff that it's really too early to be planning...for instance, I have the next four years of my college schedule written out, yet I haven't even chosen a major.

I don't plan much for the long term, apart from my early retirement, which boils down to money sums. I guess it's too late for me to plan any career stuff.....even when I was younger I was more into just drifting into whatever seemed like a good idea at the time. I really wasn't proactive at all - the social security people asked me what kind of work I wanted, so I said "lab work" because I figured that suited my science qualifications and wouldn't require any silly dress code. Actually planning a career always felt like accepting defeat somehow. I have little direct interest in the world of working for wages & salary, and find it hard to imagine a job that I'd really enjoy.

I don't see much else that would have been worth planning for. Having kids - my live-in partner clearly wanted kids, and though I didn't feel quite ready, I just found myself not bothering with the condoms....took me about a day to make the decision. The child-rearing put me through so much stress that I didn't want any more kids after that....my partner (who I'd by then married mainly to avoid any stigma affecting our son) put a lot of pressure on me to capitulate, but the thought of another kid scared me worse than she could, so it never happened.

I seem to do OK by just bumming along and taking each day as it comes. I don't think it's easy to plan happiness so I just work on myself as and when the need seems to arise, and hope I'll remain reasonably content like that.

I handle matters of money, insurance and investment long term. Other things I just plan a day or a few days in advance.

ruveyn

I just sort of fall into rhythms that are the product of me coming into contact with the world. I don't really ever 'plan' anything, stuff just happens to me.

I've tried to plan my whole life as detailed as possible, down to what cars I'll buy, where I'll live, what I'll do, including what I'll do in the early stages, etc.

I'm already looking at what car I'll get as my very first one, for example, but I also have a pretty good idea of what I'll get later on in life (Bentleys, Rolls-Royces, and Maybachs mostly)

I don't really make plans. I like to live, one day at a time.

In detail, I plan my life 2 semesters in advance, which is about 6 months. (I'm just finishing up the rest of my plans for the year now.) In general, I've planned out up to 4 years, but those long-term calendars just never seem to work out in reality. I'm a computer geek, so placing everything in desktop calendars and coordinating them all through online services is easy for me. I always demand RSVPs from whoever I associate with well in advance, and I never change my plans at the last minute unless someone breaks their agreement. (Sometimes, they just mess up.) If I need to adapt or 'go with the flow', I don't handle it well at all.
This systematization allows me to perform a lot more research in my professional career than anyone I've ever worked with. I'm probably one of the most well-read people I've ever met, yet I still have 300+ books on my to-be-complete queue. (And no, they're neither fiction nor paperback.)

I'm not sure if this is a good idea overall, though. I do this now because as a kid I always wanted for something like this to exist. I hated not knowing what my day would include -- penciling in dates into a calendar never worked as it didn't really help me prioritize. But now that I've automated my entire planning scheme, I find it almost too easy to not socialize. (I plan my shopping around when I expect the stores to have the shortest checkout lines, my Netflix queue is full up, etc.) I'm trying to change this by assigning more of my planned time to the category 'socializing', but it's hard to get people to cooperate with my own scheduling needs. I want the ability to communicate better with people but am too addicted to the gains I get from studying so much. I'm at a loss on what to do -- so maybe I'm not great at planning after all.

I plan things out to the "nth" degree sometimes a year in advance.

I try to let things just happen and when they do i deal with it, but sometime i find myself planning out what im going to do the following day.

If Lennon was right when he said "Life is what happens to you while you're busy making other plans," then not planning would seem to be the method of choice. There's also that adage about the plans of mice and men going astray.