I either have an exciting plan,
or when that fails, no plan (I resign).
Since the exciting plans usually fail, I end up living on autopilot.
I really struggle making things in life move. There’s too many simultaneous Big Tasks* whose logistics I need to keep track of that I can’t hold them all in my head at once (I can only focus on one Big Task at once). Especially when most tasks are timelines where you need to wait for responses, compose emails, search for things (there might be none – what then?) etc. and where you need to think about the order of the tasks in the timeline so that you save time. Not to forget remembering to notice if people haven’t replied to your e-mail and having to either remind them or come up with a Plan B (this usually leaves you stumped because you now can’t get the thing you started the whole journey for). There’s so many steps to keep track of and you can’t even write them down because the amount of steps keeps changing.
*Finding the next place to rent, booking a dentist for my hurting tooth, planning journeys (what is the Plan B if the journey is too expensive?)
The cluelessness and dread of having to come up with a Plan B is why I hate searching for things. Having to come up with a Plan B is so disorienting. And it’s the opposite of stimulating: you’ve put in a ton of effort and gotten nowhere. How do you all deal with it?
My “solution” personally is probably terrible -
Have so many plans on the go, you don’t ever get to the point of completing or failing!
Also this random tweet from years ago. I am totally on the “improvise everything” side
Improvisers unite ✊
I have accepted I can plan about 20% and the rest will have to be solved on the fly. The world is confusing. There are too many things happening at once for anyone (definitely at least for myself!) to keep track of everything. My goal when planning is not to set out exactly what I’m going to do, but rather to reduce uncertainty and gather information to improvise effectively if needed.
How do you deal with unexpected Plan Bs? Like say, your traveling and looking for a place to stay but there are none, or you need some extra money but you can’t find any suitable jobs? It might not be an ADHD problem but these things always really stump me.
I’m reluctant to say lower your expectations, but if you’re trying to find a job, maybe it isn’t the right time to go on vacation.
In another comment, someone mentioned planners and improvisors, and you said you were the second one. I disagree. I think you’re a planner, but you’re so afraid that you’ll spend all this time planning and something won’t go exactly right, so you’re not planning anything at all.
What if you tried making more general plans? Book a flight and a hotel nearby. Look at various places that you could visit while you’re there, and just leave it at that. If you want to check something out, go do it. If you see something cool on the way, check it out. Nobody’s best memories are about how closely they followed a schedule. It’s definitely good to have a plan, but getting distracted on a side quest doesn’t mean you can’t enjoy the rest of the day.
Actually you hit the nail on the head there. Yeah I guess I should learn to improvise and go with what I’ve got more. For some reason I’ve got this really bad habit of thinking up the experience I’d like to live and trying to make it reality, instead of seeing what’s actually out there and going with that… I don’t know where it came from or what to do about it
Do you have any thoughts about what I should do about this? I’ve noticed this is a pattern in my behaviour and I thnk it really trips me up…
Well, it’s really easy to say “Just change the way you think!”, which would probably fix everything, but in reality, we all know it’s not that simple. I may be good at going with the flow, but I have a whole mess of other issues that I wish I could just “change the way I think”.
Maybe try thinking of examples from your life when things didn’t go exactly to plan, but everything still worked out in the end, or maybe even turned out better than planned.
Surprises happen. Some are good. Some are bad. Some you can directly influence, others are out of your control.
If you can’t make the best situation, make the best of the situation!
For those two examples, I’d either keep looking or lower the requirements if I believe it’s absolutely impossible - it all depends on the time constraints.
If I have 8 months more to look for a job, I won’t care / lower my expectations. If I need a job now, I’ll find whatever and look for a better job in the meantime.
On the vacation example, I would keep trying to find a place where I want to stay until I’m actually pressed for time - then I’d look for a place further away or lower the requirements.
Sometimes trying harder works, but the times it doesn’t, it’s more valuable to find something not-so-nice and settle than to keep stressing and trying to find something impossibly good, without achieving anything.
I’d start by not traveling if I lacked sufficient funds for it.
Oh no, this didn’t happen those were just two random examples
Missed this bit. This is good
You guys got good at one of the two?
Improvise isn’t my middle name any more - it’s become my first name
Hello improvise.
I usually just improvise and wing it. It stresses my husband out I think. He likes to plan. 😆
Ugh. Definitely the second one 🥲 how do I learn to become the former?
I get the feeling that most of the former people are faking and doing a lot of masking.
I live a life of impulse. Improvisation is the way I do everything.
My work hates me for it, but they have a hard time complaining with my results.
What if you’re both?
I’m really good at making the plans. I just suck at following through on them.