Episode 131: The Planner You Bought Cannot Save You

Somewhere in your house there is a drawer with a planner in it. The first three weeks are filled in with beautiful handwriting, and then the pages go blank. If you just pictured the exact drawer, this episode is for you.

Most of us have decided that the abandoned planner means something about our character. We are undisciplined. We keep starting things we do not finish. The research points somewhere else entirely, and it lets you off a hook you have been hanging on for years.

SHOW NOTES LINK
Helen’s Resource: https://primetimewomen.co.uk/planning-personalities-quiz/

In this episode you will walk away with:

• Relief from the story that you are the problem
• A clearer sense of why one system stuck and another slid right off you
• A way to shop for your actual brain instead of the woman you think you are supposed to be

Scripture: Psalm 32:8

Research note: Lally and colleagues (2010) found the time to reach automaticity varied widely from person to person.

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Transcript

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SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to your next best step. I'm Coach Janet J. This is the show for the woman who bought the planner, downloaded the app, and ordered the color-coded sticker pack, and still feels like she is somehow failing at being organized. Today, we're gonna let you off the hook. Somewhere in your home, there's a drawer, or maybe a bookshelf. And inside that drawer or on that bookshelf is a planner you bought with real hope. The first three weeks are filled in with beautiful handwriting. And then the pages go blank right around the time real life happened. If you just pictured the exact place, you are in very good company. The reason that planner stopped working has a name, and it has almost nothing to do with your willpower. Let me tell you about my drawer. I have owned the dotted journal. I have owned the one with the little ribbon bookmark and an inspirational quote on every page. One year I bought a planner so expensive that I felt like I owed it a successful life. Now, Santina, my dog, has watched me carry these planners to the living room coffee table every morning for about the first, I don't know, 19, 20 days. But by the end of week three, it has become a coaster. And every single time one of these systems fell apart, I came to the same conclusion. I'm just not a disciplined person. Maybe you've said a version of that too. I kept starting things I do not finish. I must be the problem. Something in Psalm 32 8 shifted this for me. God says, I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go. I will counsel you with my loving eye on you. The way you should go. Your way. God's guidance in that verse is personal, fitted to the specific person he is speaking to. And that is a clue about how you were designed to be led, and how you were designed to plan. There is good science underneath this. A well-known study, led by a researcher named Lally, followed people as they each built a new daily habit of their own choosing. The time they took for the habit to feel automatic ranged from 18 days for some people to 254 days for others. Same study, same effort, very different timelines. So if your sister's morning routine clicked in three weeks and yours has not, you are simply a different person on a different curve. A separate body of research gathered across many studies points to something just as free. The behaviors that actually last are the ones a person chooses for herself because they fit into her own values and the way she likes to live. Systems that are handed to you or borrowed from someone whose life looks nothing like yours tend to slide right off. So picture yourself back in that store aisle or scrolling a website at tenant night or holding the planner with the gold edges. The real question is whether it fits the way your particular mind works. Plenty of planners are beautiful. The one that helps you is the one built for the way you are wired. Some of us need a lot of structure, boxes, times, a slot for everything. We feel calm when the day has edges. Others of us wilt the second a system gets rigid. We need white space, room to move, a list we can rearrange without guilt. Both of these women are completely normal, and many of us fall into the same trap. We keep buying for the woman we think we should be instead of the woman we actually are. This reaches all four of our pillars. Mentally it ends the tired story that you are undisciplined or disorganized. Emotionally, it lifts the weight of shame that comes with abandoning one more system. Physically, it honors that your energy and your follow-through rise and fall with your real days, your sleep, and your season of life. And spiritually, it returns you to a God who, in that verse, promises to lead you personally with his loving eye on you in the way you should go. So your next best step this week is one piece of self-observation. Let's call it a planner personality clue. Think back to a time when a system truly helped you. It doesn't have to be a planner, it could be a wall calendar, a single sticky note on the bathroom mirror, or even a pile of sticky notes on your desk, the notes app on your phone, or a meal plan that stuck one busy autumn. Picture the one that actually worked for you. Then ask one question. Did that system give me more structure or more flexibility? That is the clue. That is your design speaking. And from there, choose one experiment for the coming week. If you lean towards structure, block two specific times for something that matters to you. If you lean towards flexibility, keep one running list and let yourself reorder it freely. One experiment, one week. You are gathering information about how you are wired, and there's no grade at the end. Let me anchor the three things worth keeping. The science says habits form on very different timelines, and the systems that last are the ones that fit the actual person. Scripture says God leads you personally and the way that you should go. And your step this week is to simply notice whether you are built for more structure or more flexibility and to run the one experiment from there. The fit is the hero of the story. Always was. If you'd like even more specifics, my dear friend Helen Still, the founder of Primetime Women, has a freebie for you. It breaks down planning personalities into four styles or types. I'll be sure to put the link in the show notes. My main type wasn't a surprise, however, the others were. On Friday, we're sitting with a feeling a lot of us know well. That sense that everyone else is starting fresh and somehow you are already behind. It's a warm one, and I hope you will join me. If this show is helping you, follow or subscribe wherever you are listening or watching so the next episode finds you without you having to go look for it. I will see you on Friday. Take your next best step.