Balancing Spontaneity and Planning
Reading Time: 4 minutes
Yurui’s Summary
Judging: planners who love schedules and order. Perceiving: Flexibility, adaptability, spontaneity.
On the Macro scale, being too ‘judging’ means that you have a clear goal, but you lose sight of every other opportunity with your tunnel vision. Being too ‘perceiving’ means that you have no real goal, but you’re open-minded to experiences that can shape you.
Ultimatum: Always work towards a central goal and a vision of who you want to become. Hold dear your core values. But be open-minded to new ideas. Smell the flowers along the way.
On the Micro scale, being too ‘judging’ means that you’ll at least get work done, but you might hate your life and be less efficient. Being too ‘perceiving’ means that you might end up pulling an all nighter for your assignment tomorrow, but at least you’re doing what you enjoy.
Ultimatum: Be mindful with how you spend your time, but sometimes lose yourself in the moment, and appreciate the flow state. Smell the flowers along the way.
Don’t stress. Take it easy. None of us have it all figured out.
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Let me introduce to you the concept of Judging and Perceiving, in the context of the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI).
Those who are ‘judging’ personality types are detailed planners who love schedules, and hate deviating from order. They also love deadlines and organising themselves. ‘Perceiving’ personality types, however, are much more flexible with their planning, are more adaptive, and spontaneous with their work. They are more ‘go with the flow’ types of people, and work a lot closer to deadlines.
On the Micro Scale
Personally, I used to be an absolutely obsessive ‘judging’ personality type. I loved planning out how I’d spend my days, I’d have plans for the future, to-do lists, and schedules that absolutely dominated how I spent my time. I was great with deadlines, finishing assignments the week before they were due was pretty normal to me, as my friends pulled all-nighters (the marks we received were similar though)! I was an obsessive over-planner.
Recently though, I’ve migrated my whole life to Google Calendar and I feel absolutely fantastic with my time management.
I guess I’ve reflected a bit, and realised that there is a downside from being too organised and planned with my time. On a micro (day-to-day) level, sometimes I have to force myself to do some work, when I could be doing something else in a much more efficient manner. Sometimes I just feel like I want to write some blog articles than study for my Maths exam!
And the Macro?
On a more macro sense, restricting myself to one goal to hit within the year, or one position I have to reach, in doing so, centering my identity around that one goal is actually a net negative to me. I’ll suffer a ton to get to the goal, often doing what I don’t truly want to do, and I’ll be a lot less open to opportunities that are potentially productive but not necessarily contribute to my pre-defined goals. There’s very much a tunnel vision with how I apply myself to the world if everything is goal-centered. Not gonna lie, some days I go to bed and feel like “I’ve just wasted the whole day“ because I didn’t directly work towards my goal. That being said, I feel like having no goal or vision that you’re shooting yourself towards will lead to a lack of motivation and desire to get out of bed in the morning.
However, Steve Jobs (paraphrased) asked “How can you connect the dots if they haven't even been drawn yet?”
On the other hand, I’ve become a lot more open-minded and appreciative of how spontaneity can result in so many insane opportunities. Buddhism advocates for the abstraction of life into the present and giving in to your own perception of your natural instincts, and a lack of desire for a different life. Being open-minded gives way to innovation and exploring, and learning from perspectives that you’d never have encountered otherwise, in doing so, opening yourself to serendipity. I’ve met the most talented and insane people, and read about the most interesting philosophies and concepts by being free with my time.
I’ve grappled with these two concepts a ton; through naturally being ambitious, but also curious, I’ve had quite a few coffee chat conversations with random people, asking about their career and how their experiences have been like, in an attempt to narrow it down to what I can pursue in the future (or even just an industry or general direction at this point)! Realistically, I’ve instead been swallowed up by a kaleidoscope of opportunity and possibility, and I’ve found it absolutely impossible to actually decide on a particular career.
The Ultimatum?
The compromise I’ve dealt myself is this: I’m going to spend a bit of time considering what the future will hold, and always work towards a central goal, which will motivate me and give you an indication of how successful you are. I also want to hold some ‘north star’ guiding values for both my day-to-day life and macro goals. I’ll still set myself to-do lists for every day, but I’ll also let spontaneity take control sometimes, going with the flow and being as open as I can to new experiences, doing this by scheduling the flexible around the inflexible, going to random events, scheduling calls with complete strangers and signing up for the things that I would never have imagined doing. This works out pretty well for me; I end up getting my work done by having a rough idea of deadlines, and then having a more high-level list of priorities and what I feel like working on.
I now consider my work on a day-to-day basis to be a vector. Vectors are quantities with direction and magnitude. When we consider the big picture, philosophical questions, we determine the ‘direction’ of our work. When we go into a ‘flow state’, put our heads down and grind out our work, we increase the ‘magnitude’ that our work reaches.
James Clear puts it very profoundly: "Goals determine your direction. Systems determine your progress.”
I think that thinking causes inaction. But too much action may be led astray without thinking.
After often being too extreme on both sides of the spectrum at different times (thinking too much and doing nothing VS not thinking and just doing), I’ve dealt myself an ultimatum. I think that you should be being mindful with your time (not mindlessly doing random stuff, and instead having a vision of who you want to become in the future). But also, sometimes lose yourself in the moment, and appreciate the flow state you get into when you do work. Smell the flowers along the way.
An amazing extract from Lawrence Yeo’s blog More To That:
"People talk about being present in the moment, but there’s also the broader concept of macro-presence: feeling broadly present in your own life. If you’re on a career dot that, when you’re being really honest with yourself, feels right, you get to stop thinking and stop planning for a while and just dig in. You’ll come back to the big picture later—for now, you can put the macro picture aside, put your head down, and dedicate all of your energy to the present. For a while, you can just live."
Summary
On the Macro scale, being too ‘judging’ means that you have a clear goal, but you lose sight of every other opportunity with your tunnel vision. Being too ‘perceiving’ means that you have no real goal, but you’re open-minded to experiences that can shape you. Ultimatum: Always work towards a central goal and a vision of who you want to become. Hold dear your core values. But be open-minded to new ideas. Smell the flowers along the way.
On the Micro scale, being too ‘judging’ means that you’ll at least get work done, but you might hate your life and be less efficient. Being too ‘perceiving’ means that you might end up pulling an all nighter for your assignment tomorrow, but at least you’re doing what you enjoy. Ultimatum: Be mindful with how you spend your time, but sometimes lose yourself in the moment, and appreciate the flow state. Smell the flowers along the way.
Don’t stress. Take it easy. None of us have it all figured out.
Yurui
