For me, I’ve always been a planning kind of guy! I love having all my ducks in a row before I make any decision, because I’ve seen firsthand what being impulsive can do to a person. As in, if you’re not careful, one moment of impulse can destroy everything that you’ve spent decades building. And on the other hand, planning and preparation can also be procrastination tactics, designed to stop you from going ahead with what you have to do, but with the planning, you keep fooling yourself that you’re actually doing something.
So, no style is without reproach. Impulse can be said to be the fire brigade approach; you see what you want and simply go after it. Easy peasy, and as the consequences come, you deal with them accordingly. Even if it destroys you. Sometimes these pay off, and other times, it takes a person from 1000 to zero almost in the blink of an eye. That’s how crazy it can be.
So, for me, planning is my way. Like, I literally plan everything I do. I plan my writing, my posts. Before I sit on my laptop to type, I already have an idea of how the first sentence and paragraph would sound. Hell, I always have just the right tone for it. Then, everything else falls into place as the rest of the post just writes itself.
And for my stories, I use outlines. I don’t start a new book without first creating an outline for my stories. This way, my work follows a strict path that, while I leave it flexible for changes, sticks to the main plot that I had planned for it. The first movie script I wrote also used this technique, and it has always worked for me. Outlines are the lifeblood of my work, they contain all my twists and turns and jump scares. It’s so valuable that I only use ink and paper to write them, and I use a special shorthand to encode them, one that only I can easily read. This way, it’s basically useless to anyone else who will see it.
Being a planner prepares you for whatever eventuality may come your way. You think far ahead of how things may go, and you prepare accordingly. When you plan for a project, you imagine that things will go well and also prepare for the case where things don’t go well. So that whichever way the cookie crumbles, you’d have something to follow up.
If you keep running everything by faith and vibes, hoping that the world will work itself out in the end, then you’re only setting yourself up for premium disappointment. Because when you don’t plan for something, you’re unprepared for it, and when it catches you off guard, it can have disastrous consequences. So, planning will always be a go-to for me. No matter what.
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