Plan Your Spontaneity

Would you consider yourself a planner or someone who is more spontaneous than well-planned? What if it was possible to live well-planned and to live spontaneously? I have discovered a way to plan my spontaneity and I’m going to tell you how you can start doing this too.

Being well-planned doesn’t mean we have to write down what we’re going to do every second of the day. Planning is helpful; overplanning is restrictive.

Make your planning all about preparing and positioning yourself to be able to do what you really want to do. Let me show you how this works in my life in a way that allows me to actually plan my spontaneity.

Time

At this point in my life, I am pretty dialed in on the ideal schedule for my week and for each day. I use almost every work morning to create content (yes, it’s 10:37am while I’m writing this 🙂.) I am at my best and most creative self during this time of day. However, I try to leave some margin in my schedule during the afternoon. Margin is how you plan your spontaneity when it comes to your schedule. If you schedule 30-minute meetings back-to-back throughout the entire afternoon, you will miss out on the sense of freedom margin can give you. I usually end up spending my “margin” time in a significant way, but creating content in the morning and leaving space in my afternoon allows me to spontaneously decide how I want to spend these hours.

See if you can find 1-2 hours a day to write “margin” in you schedule.

Money

When it comes to how we spend, invest, or give away our money, we tend to fall into one of two camps: we either are well-planned or we just do what we feel like doing in the moment. But what if we can have a plan for what we want to do spontaneously with our money? Generosity is a major value for my wife, Shauna, and me. We give a % of our total income to our local church. Beyond that set amount, we decide each year what % of our income we’ll give above that amount each year. This allows us to set aside the money (our plan). What do we do with that money? We have the freedom to give it away spontaneously as we become aware of opportunities and needs.

See if you can set aside a % of your income (this is your planned part) so you can enjoy the freedom to do something spontaneously with it. This could be going on a vacation, giving it away to causes you care about, or being able to take your kids to get ice cream just because you want to.

Other Areas

Where else can you apply this lesson of planned spontaneity in your life? Let me tell you about one more of mine and see if it helps you discover your own. I teach at Epic Church around 32 Sundays a year right now. This takes a lot of planning. I write out a full manuscript for each of my messages. On Friday mornings, I go on a 3-hour walk where I memorize my message. I go over the message again at 5:30am on Sunday mornings in my chair at home. When I arrive at church at 7:15am, I go over it one last time. As you can see, I’m well planned. But when I get up to teach, if I sense the need to say something in the moment that I haven’t prepared for - I go for it. The reason I can do this is because I have planned well for it.

See if there’s another area in your life or work where you can make the most of planned spontaneity. What is it and how can you begin to implement it this week?