(So it's been far too long since I've written something here, for which I apologize, and I'll try to be better in the future. I can't promise anything more than that, though.)
So the topic of planning has come up in my recent conversations. This is something I've thought a lot about, mostly because I'm incapable of doing it. No, it's not an I-won't-do-it thing, it's an I-can't-do-it thing. Trust me, I've tried. On the mission, you're supposed to plan every hour of every day and have daily, weekly, and monthly goals, and that kind of worked for me, but not entirely.
But all the recent conversations I've had on this topic have caused me to think about it. Mostly it's come up in my psychology classes, because there are a lot more girls than guys, and let's be honest, girls, on average, plan a lot more than guys. They write down all their homework assignments in their planners, plan out when they are going to do each assignment, and even have much clearer long-term plans. (Now, I'm not saying that every girl is like nor that no boy is, just that generally speaking this tends to be the case for whatever reason.)
Most of the girls I talk to say that it's simply my attitude that prevents me from planning, that if I were to choose to really plan, it would happen. I am not convinced this is the case. Perhaps I'm speaking too deterministically, but I don't think that everyone's personality meshes well with planning ahead.
Of course, this presents problems with my religion, because I don't even want to try and count how many times I've heard leaders of my church talk about the importance of setting and striving to accomplish goals (not to mention my parents). We should write them down, set smaller goals on the way to achieving our big goal, essentially plan out how we're going to accomplish each goal. By doing this, we'll be able to accomplish more in life.
Perhaps I'm in a very small minority, but my collegiate academic career has been exactly the opposite. Before my mission I used to try and follow this counsel, but I kind of stopped during my mission when my attempts at doing so failed miserably. Since my mission my grades have been better, despite my planning being non-existent. And the funny thing is, I'm pretty sure this is exactly how Heavenly Father wants it. Explain that one.
