Last year, I recorded a video series with a dear friend discussing the Power of Now book. We enjoyed this collaboration and went deeply into the topic, and the outcome was 36 episodes averaging 15 minutes each.
By saying that the now is all there is, and that we are happiest when we live in the now, many felt I was contradicting myself as someone who promoted time management and planning in my podcast and other videos.
How can we think ahead while also living in the now?
Planning and being present do not contradict each other; planning helps you live in the now.
- When you schedule your time in blocks, you don’t need to keep thinking of the future because you have already decided what you would work on next.
- When you plan, you ideally write your top 1-3 priorities of the day, so when other shiny things show up, you stay focused on those priorities or switch them up to deal with emerging demands.
- When you plan, you don’t suffer from that sudden sinking feeling of remembering an overdue task.
- Planning your time helps you stay present and confident that you are right where you need to be, doing the right things. There is no sense of wanting to escape the moment to a past or future one. This state empowers you to block distractions and promotes deep work mode, the most important kind of work that advances you in strides, versus the shallow fire-fighting mode that still takes place but much less so.
When we plan our goals, it’s the same; we set our destination then focus on the daily habits and actions that we can control today to reach it or something better, we hope. Attachment to outcome is when we stop living in the now; releasing attachment is a life lesson we need to be willing to learn.
So go crazy planning, but don’t get stuck there.
Action is in the now. It is where the magic happens.