Iam a planner. I feel more at ease when I have a plan that is well thought out. In teaching, I have my entire semester planned on day one. When vacationing, I have an itinerary and outfits planned for each day. Checking things off on my to-do list makes me so happy. It’s the day before Thanksgiving, and I’m starting to twitch a little because only 90% of my Christmas shopping is done.

I get things done early, efficiently, and meticulously. I remember being in college, and we had a project due in a couple weeks. I got it done in a couple days, but I still went to class because that’s what you do. I was sitting at my computer, not really doing anything, when my professor came over and asked what I was doing. I told him that my project was done. He then asked, “So why are you here?” It never occurred to me to (gasp) skip class. Another time, I was in a similar situation. We had a project listed on the syllabus; I finished well before the due date. However, as the due date came closer, many of my classmates had not even started. One of them was confused on what to do and had asked another student for help. That student replied, “Why don’t you ask Stephanie? You know she has it done.”

It boggles my mind when people don’t plan ahead and leave things to the last minute. Don’t they feel stressed? How can they be so relaxed? I can’t relax until the to-do list is done. But I also realize that I am in the minority here. It doesn’t matter how much I encourage my students to get things done; they inevitably will wait until the night before. I have been teaching for 19 years, and yet I still continue to beat my head against a brick wall and encourage them to work on things sooner than later. There are also those times in my personal life where I take care of things because I know others will not think of it. And I find myself wishing that I could be the person that doesn’t think of things, just for a day, so someone else can be the person to have a million things running through their head. Someone else can be the person who takes care of things while I sit back and relax. But that’s just not who I am. So I will continue to plan and encourage others to do the same even though I know most of them won’t.