I was brought up in a family of planners. We planned everything. I can’t tell you anything that happened that wasn’t planned. We talked about plans before they were plans, we planned out when to plan, we discussed the current plan, we anticipated what the next plan would be, and we thought about what the plan was for tomorrow’s plan. And we had a tentative plan for next week, too. And the plan for next week included plans for the following week.
The Plan Ruled in my family.
Which probably explains why I married a guy whose family never planned. If you showed up on time, good job! It’ll just be a few more minutes before I’m ready; where are we going again?
This is incredibly entertaining to me, incredibly frustrating, and always fascinating. Either the plan or the non-plan; I’m often amazed anyone can make it through the day.
I was thinking about this because I was reading a Runner’s World magazine from last year (I’m working my way through them, I swear) and saw a blurb about a man who has run every day since December 20, 1964.
Yeah, you read that right: he has run more than 16,000 days in a row.
They had a photo of him sitting with his seventeen running log books spread before him. It’s pretty impressive. I thought about one of my bootcampers, who reports that her dad has a journal that chronicles every workout he’s done for the past four decades.
Wow.
I think that would be so cool to have for myself. I just know it isn’t going to happen. At least, not without my undergoing a massive personality shift.
It’s hard to see any log book and not think of blood sugar log books. (I asked for a copy of my printouts the other day from my doctor, so now I at least have something to look at!) How crazy would that be, if I had blood sugar records from every check I ever did?? Can you even imagine that? 22 years, 4-14 checks a day, with insulin and activity records? For more than twenty-two years?
Not that I’m competitive or anything, but I bet I’d fill up waaay more than seventeen books.
A plan involves both looking ahead and looking back. Plans can either complicate or simplify life; it depends I think on the planner involved.
I’m sure I’d make more changes to my insulin if I had record books and could look at patterns on paper. I’m just not sure if more frequent changes would be better for me. I’ve been considering writing my numbers down again, just to see if I feel better doing it than not doing it. I’m sure I’ll tell you how it’s going if I decide to start.
I will say this: I started logging my workouts in an online workout calendar this past year and I like it. I like knowing what the past month looks like in terms of my days running and doing weights and yoga. I look at that to help me decide what would be good for me to do next.
I guess I learned something from growing up in a Planning Family.
