can't I logic my way out?

 My friends, I have procured yet another type of planner--this one a Panda Planner from Rocketbook. I was curious about it, and I've been enjoying my Rocketbooks that I got for Christmas from a friend, so I figured, eh, why not. I'm not sure it's the planner I want, particularly when the example gave a goal (get in shape) and then the target metric was weight-based, and it triggered my rage at diet culture. So maybe Panda Planner should not be so fat-phobic in its examples, and besides, weight shouldn't be a target metric for "get in shape" but instead something like "lift X lbs" or "do plank for 1 minute" or something. Gahhhh.

Anyway, I digress.

Another friend mentioned something their therapist told them, which is that you can't logic your way out of situations (not an exact quote, but the gist). And I come back to that idea time and time again--I often think if I can just plan it out, then I can eliminate all of my woes. I empathized with Courtney Milan's character in The Duke Who Didn't because she loved making lists and always aimed for perfection on completing the list--but always failed. The point there is that the character purposefully made the lists impossible to accomplish because she was aiming at a standard of perfection that seemly wasn't attainable as a way of coping with the chaos of the world. And I do that a lot.

My calendars and planning systems are all an attempt to obtain some perfection, to use my formidable organization skills to impose order on a world that simply cannot be ordered. I know this. And yet, here I am, with a new sleek planner and the promise that I can try a new way to organize things to make the world fit into orderly patterns.

Ultimately, though, my systems are useful: I'm using them to realize what I can accomplish in a week and to plan out my days. I'm getting a clearer sense of what is feasible in a day--and also considering how I can shift things if I need to take a break, like I did last week after an exhausting day that followed a few hectic weeks. So, perhaps the planner obsession is useful in helping me reach some clarity about working as much as I need to work and letting everything else go--something I am working toward much more consciously this year.