At the House of Perpetual Indulgence, if you want to know what’s going on or what someone is up to, you ask: what’s the plan?
So, what’s the plan for this weekend?
What’s the plan tonight?
What’s the kid’s plan today?
I think probably 0% of you are surprised at this news. After all, we are the house of planning, right? Where all things are preordained in accordance with the lunar days and planetary hours and will of the ancestors and spirits. Where everything moves in alignment with the spheres and all things are organized and there’s never any chaos or uncertainty.
Yeah, no. Not so much. In fact, our household has what I’d consider to be a pretty normal amount of chaos. We never catch up on the laundry, we fight the good fight against clutter, and we work to fit our lives into a small space.*
We also don’t have a rigid schedule. We prefer the flexibility of deciding
what to do with our Saturday afternoon or when to have dinner or what the evening’s holds as needed. We certainly don’t all march in lockstep to some kind of overarching plan — especially not one dictated by myself.
In fact, sometimes the answer to the question, “what’s the plan?” is “there is no plan!”
I think this is important because too much planning is as bad as too little. Do we have personal goals and plans to achieve them? Yeah. Do we make prioritized backlogs of house stuff when things get overwhelming? Of course! But we also have the flexible mindset to roll with changes in season, weather, schedule, and preference. We plan… but we’re agile about our plans.
And this is the key. When you adhere to too rigid of a schedule, you can inadvertently limit your options. Sometimes it’s better to go with the flow, follow your instincts, and do things when the time is right… not when the calendar (magical or mundane) says the time is right.
* Note: Our house is 1046 sq ft or 97 sq meters (for anyone reading from Europe) and whether you think that’s small or not probably depends on where you’re from and what you’re used to. But with three adult-sized humans, two dogs, a studio / office, and a workshop, it can feel a bit cramped.
