The other day I had the opportunity to trot out one of my favorite aphorisms: plan is more a verb than a noun. And it got me thinking about what planning really is and what it does. One of the things I’ll hear is that there’s no point in planning because inevitably things change and you don’t end up doing what you planned anyway. So why not just wing it? Why bother to plan at all?
In my experience, in my own life and at work and with my clients, having a plan that changes is still better than having no plan at all. And by better, I mean “better at giving you the outcomes you want” not like “subjectively better because planning is like kale — good for you even if you hate it.”
But why is that? Why is a plan you change better than no plan? It’s because plan is a verb… it’s a process:
“…the mystery of life isn’t a problem to solve, but a reality to experience… A process cannot be understood by stopping it. Understanding must move with the flow of the process, must join it and flow with it…”
Dune, by Frank Herbert
What is it that the process of planning does?
- It creates a liminal window where the constraints of space and time do not bind you. In my monthly planner, there are interstitial days: days that are past the 29th lunar day, but before the new moon. Some systems have a lunar day 30, but the Hygromanteia doesn’t. So I use these in-between days as planning days. Since they appear every few months, it’s a great rhythm for longer term planning, but also, planning itself is an in-between, liminal activity. When you make space in your life to plan, you are creating space to step mindfully step away from your current situation to consider alternative options and ideas. That’s powerful. That’s where magic happens.
- It gives you a structure to explore your values, your vision for your life, and your deepest desires. Plans come from vision. At work, this might be a boring corporate vision that the execs came up with on their annual golfing / drinking retreat, but as an individual you can do so much better. Vision is the seed of manifestation. If you want to change your life with magic, it’s smart to have an idea of the end state. If planning sounds like a tedious, dry activity, that’s because you haven’t enchanted it enough. Imagine that the process includes sacred journeying to explore possible futures, meetings with your spirits to explore your values, and divination to identify risks.
- It also forces you to look coldly at your current state, your starting point. But because you do it in the liminal state of planning, you can do it more objectively and more realistically, instead of emotionally. This is much like positioning in my magical framework — where you are is simultaneously stuck in a dead end job in a dead end town while also being the absolute center of the universe. By standing up and saying I AM HERE, you simultaneously announce your power while also being firmly on the ground… the actual terrain of your life. This is what separates planning from dreaming. You turn the map into your territory as you go (hence changing plans, which continues the process).
- It gives you permission to set boundaries. This is huge! So many people’s dreams are sacrificed on the altar of obligation. But the truth is that you can’t do everything, everywhere, all at once. You have to choose, to prioritize. If you don’t, the world will do it for you, but not necessarily in your best interest. Creating a plan is announcing “I will do THIS” which is also implicitly and explicitly announcing “I will NOT do THAT.” In fact, all plans should have a defined scope (what’s in and what’s out). Kind of like a protective circle, right? It’s protection traveling through time to your future self. It’s also a compass that uses your values (a moral compass). When you plan you not only say “I don’t prioritize that” you also get to say “I do not do that.”
- It focuses you… and your magic. We know that magic requires a certain detached intensity. An effortless effort. Of focusing completely on your outcome without lust for result. This is the key for actually doing successful magic, beyond all the materia and trappings and invocations. It’s a paradox and a trick, this mindset of complete focus and at the same time complete detachment. Planning is excellent practice for this mindset. To look coldly, but also creatively, on the practicalities of achieving something really important and that you have a lot of commitment to is exactly this enchanter’s mindset. The better I got at planning, the better I got at magic. Moreover, the honing of vision and goals and timelines and tasks make it much easier to find the leverage points where enchantment can have the most benefit. A good plan is like a sigil statement generator.
- It gives you a sense of history. Planning is a process that ends up with certain documented results. This might be a schedule or a resource list or a vision board or a list of tasks… in PM lingo, these are called artifacts. And that’s perfect because they are much more like archeological artifacts in a dig than law volumes in a library. They are layered through the life of your planning (which is really through your life). You have artifacts now that you may not even realize (old journals, previous jobs, tasks lists scattered about). They tell you something about where you WERE as well as where you ARE. From that you can continue working to get to where you want to be. Artifacts are subject to interpretation and to extrapolation, which are important parts of the planning process.
- It flows. You can’t stop living to plan. That’s why plans change. Because the process continues and you can’t stop the process, you can only flow with it. Plan is a raft and a rudder and a compass and a map. It’s not a damn or a floodgate or a deep freeze. It can help you from drowning or foundering or getting lost in the weeds. But it goes with you and changes with you as you go.
If a plan seems like something restrictive and boring, or alternately pointless and a waste of time, consider that you might just not be verbing and haunting the planning enough. Correctly done, it’s a powerful magical tool for manifestation and living a more enchanted life.
