My husband Bob does the grocery shopping on Saturdays. Sometimes he does other things while he’s out, so one Saturday morning I asked, “What are your plans for today?” He said, “I think I’ll do the grocery shopping.” I saw that as a given, and and playfully asked, “When did you plan that?”
- About five years ago.
I cracked up because it’s true – his day had been largely planned five years before. When I did my own shopping, I would tend to go when I opened the fridge and couldn’t find anything to make a meal out of.
I enjoy the benefits of a fridge that magically replenishes once a week. His system works. The only question is, if it stopped working, would he change it?
Planners can be rigid, and those of us who are more spontaneous and organic can be chaotic. We’ve tempered each other over the years. While I never will embrace his level of structure, I gladly embrace the principle of creating systems that work. While he will never embrace my fluidity, he gladly embraces the principle of shaking things up when they get stagnant and just don’t work anymore.