A Project Unplanned

Sometimes, I do a project without writing much in my planner. {Gasp. Shock. Awe.}

Sometimes, I write down the assignment and the deadline, but just work on the project, without a plan. Yes, I really do that.

Today, I'm working on a project that involves summarizing 400 pages on a chart and then doing some comparative analysis of the 400 pages. (Don't you wish you had gone to law school, too?)

Planning the project would have been a complete waste of time.

I do have a vague list of tasks that I need to accomplish: read the pages, create the chart, add the information into the chart, analyze the information, and proofread the chart. But the order creates itself. I have to read the information in order to know what the chart should look like. I have to make the chart before I put information in it.

The order is mandated by the project, so there is no reason to waste time planning.

If something is complicated, plan it.

If something takes up too much of your memory, plan it.

But no matter how much you love your planner, if you plan just because you think you HAVE to, you are wasting time. And isn't the point of the planner to buy you as much time as possible?

Etcetera.