Plan. Execute. Succeed. Three words my uncle told me after I graduated from high school. I thought about these words the other day, and I realized while how simple, yet exact they really are.

Right now I am in the planning phase of my life. While I do believe I am in the processes of executing a plan I made for myself after deciding what I wanted to study, I don’t want to get ahead of myself, and lets be honest, I am still making it up everyday as I go along.

My plan was to attend the University of New Haven, study communications, and become a journalist. Along the way, I have since picked up a double minor in Environmental Science and Photography. If that’s not a lot to handle, let’s toss in the fact that I am a three-seasoned athlete, the assistant editor of the Charger Bulletin, and a member of a couple clubs on campus. My life would be unmanageable without a plan(ner).

If there is one thing I rely on more than anyone or anything in my life, it is my planner. I have my life plan, and now to execute that plan successfully, I depend on the sanity my planner provides for me by keeping me organized.

While my planner is an inanimate object that doesn’t do anything other than provide blank spaces for me put all my thoughts, I would be lost without it. I write everything I have to do down. That way I will not forget, or fall short of completing a task. I cross things off as I go and accomplish what I have planned, and sometimes, to make myself feel even more accomplished, I add things I have done that weren’t originally on the list.

I don’t know how people stay organized without a planner. It is not possible that you remember everything you have to do, and if your classmate won’t be honest with you, I will. It gets annoying after awhile, when you keep asking them (them, being who wrote it down when the teacher assigned it in the first place, so they wouldn’t forget like you did) what the assignment is, and when it is due.

A planner as simple as mine does not come at a high cost, and has definitely paid for itself with how many times it has saved me; the sad thing is it has only been two weeks of school so far.

If you think I sound crazy, consider other planners, outside of a simple notebook that’s used daily. On a broader level, many people hire planners (people, not inanimate objects) to organize their lives; wedding planners, vacation planners, and even secretaries. Now if you think about it like that, maybe you can understand how truly important a plan(ner) is, and how sensible I sound afterwards.

So take a couple seconds to write things down, stay organized, and it will make executing your plans a little more easy, and the success also that much easier, and just as, if not more, rewarding.