Confessions of a Compulsive Planner

 June 21, 2016

I admit it. I’m one of those people. I love to plan. One month, one year, five year, ten year plans. I do them all. I love it when a plan comes to together. And when one falls apart, I see it as an opportunity to plan some more.

When I originally started to blog on the Psalms, I planned to reflect on one psalm each week, thereby working my way through all 150 of them. I figured that at the end of this time, I would have the basis for a book of reflections on the Psalms. I haven’t always kept up faithfully every week. I took breaks at times. Each November, during Na-No-Wri-Mo I took a break from these posts to focus on my novel. I also experimented with other posts related to the Psalms. But overall I have kept at it.

Now the end is in sight. I only have eleven psalms yet to cover, meaning in eleven weeks I will be done with this significant undertaking. What will I do then? Don’t worry. I have a plan.

I had planned to take November off as I usually do, then, come the first week of Advent, I have another series of meditations just waiting to be shared over the course of next year while I work on compiling my book on the Psalms. I’ve had this plan in mind for the past year or so. In fact, in December as I looked at the psalms that remained, I thought it was going to work perfectly. I would finish the last psalm in October right before my November break.

However, when I first figured this out, I think I allowed myself six weeks for the massive Psalm 119. Either that or I planned on taking a break from my weekly psalm post during Lent while I posted a Bible Study on the Psalms. Whatever happened, my plan has fallen apart.

Right now, with eleven psalms left, I will be finished mid-September. So much for my plans. I can take a few weeks off during the summer, or maybe just push through and take the time off in September/October. Or start again with Psalm 1 until November.

I also had plans for my Dancing Through Life Series around NaNoWriMo. My plan was to write a new novel for the series every November during NaNoWriMo. Since my first three novels in the series were written this way, this seemed appropriate. However, as I plotted out what I would write this summer, it seemed the characters for the fourth book pushed their way to the forefront of my to do list so now that plan has been pushed aside.

I’m currently working on this book, An Irish Slip Step. I have another book for the series in my head that maybe I will work on in November, or maybe not. I also have a trilogy I started last summer that needs work, so maybe I’ll do that.

Sometimes life has a way of upsetting the best laid plans. When that happens . . .time to plan again! My favorite thing!

Are you a planner? What do you do when your plans fall apart?