Why the Pandemic Should Not Stop You From Planning
We all know by now that living through a pandemic is challenging, to say the least. Aside from making a conscious effort to keep yourself healthy and avoid activities that expose you to the virus, it changes the way you live your life. It can break habits or routines you’ve formed over the years. This is where planning becomes essential. It helps you pick yourself up and create novel tasks and challenges to survive the new normal. Here are some of the reasons why planning is important even during a pandemic:
It keeps you grounded.
Change can turn out to be for good and that can largely depend on how you approach it. Updating your planner allows you to stay on track with your activities and commitments. You may be having an emotional day but you still need to pick up the groceries to fill your pantry. It’s alright to experience different things during the pandemic, and your planner can remind you of the most important things you need to do or attend to. Life still goes on and planning and staying organized can help us get a grip, especially when we’re starting to feel overwhelmed.It helps you learn from your experiences.
Planners are sometimes used like a diary where you write the highs and lows in your life. At the moment when you pour your thoughts on paper, you become more aware of what’s happening around you. You allow yourself to accept the changes that are happening and the emotions that come with them. You understand yourself a little better. In the future, when you look back on your entries, it may well become another learning experience where you find new meaning as you reflect on living through this pandemic. The learning never stops and you have to thank your past self for making you the way you are.It’s a way to unload your thoughts.
The pandemic can make you feel emotions that you’ve never experienced before. There are times when you just think about a lot of things and maybe you even find yourself thinking about overthinking. It’s human to experience such days and a planner can help you express your thoughts. Writing it down can be therapeutic and freeing. As you pour all the stress you have had the whole day into your planner, you may feel that weight being lifted off your shoulders. It’s also a way to remind you of things that bothered you, of small problems you can now solve, like recalling the title of your favorite song that you kept on forgetting or how you wanted to answer a question but were not able to at the time. A planner gives you a safe space to explore your thoughts. It’s like a friend who will always have your back.It prepares you to take action.
It takes effort to keep yourself moving during the pandemic. It also takes effort to keep your planners updated, but this shows that you are committed to taking control of your life which is an achievement in itself. Updating your planner takes time and dedication. It may be different now from the pre-pandemic days as it can be double the effort and there might be more important things at hand. It doesn’t matter if it’s about an updated planner or a new hobby. What’s good is that you are able to take the first step in making things feel normal even if they aren’t. With planning, you are able to create your own new normal.It makes you look forward to the future.
Planning for the “now” helps you survive your everyday life. How about when the pandemic is over? What will you do then? Some take planning ahead as a way to cope with how things are right now, a way to reassure themselves that everything will eventually be better. Getting ready for the future is an exciting experience. You get to look at what you’ve missed out on during the pandemic, take note of new things that you want to do, and challenge yourself to do something you never thought you could do. Planning also gives you goals to aim for and encourages you to be positive just by looking at all the possibilities the future can bring.
Whether it’s during a pandemic or not, planning is important. It might be a little bit more challenging when you have to consider the health hazards around you, but it’s still your life. Planning ahead takes you little by little to the dreams you have for yourself and the goals you want to achieve.