Planners as Underwear

Last week I made a comment on a Plannerisms post that I thought I would expand on. The post discussed planning your day and/or week and what time of day/week that gets done. Among the many comments made, some people said that they take their planners to work and leave them open on their desk all day long. Like them, I take my planner to work and keep it on my desk for easy access. But I do not leave it open. By doing this, I feel like I’m letting people look into my underwear drawer.

Let me explain:

I can be a rather shy person, especially when I don’t know someone very well. But once I feel comfortable enough, I open up and reveal many things about myself. More than once I have heard how I am very different from how people first perceive me (or maybe I’m actually different from how I initially portray myself – I’m not sure which it is). However, when someone does get to know me better, there can still be a wall of privacy, depending on the person and in what capacity I know them. And in many ways, my planner is a private thing. It’s not that it holds deep, dark secrets. But it holds many things about my life and therefore, about me. I don’t feel very comfortable leaving my planner open at work for all to see what I have planned or what needs to be done. It’s nobody’s business but my own. And I don’t really think that someone would look through my planner. But I wouldn’t want anyone to feel invited to do that if they found it lying open on my desk.

Here on this blog, I can describe everything I have in my planner. I can also post pictures on my Flickr page. And I can do all of that without feeling the need for a high level of privacy because all of you understand how important a planner can be and how it can reveal certain things about you that you might not reveal otherwise, with or without knowing it. I also feel like I have gotten to know many of you through your comments and questions. I quietly read the Philofaxy blog for a long time before I ever made a comment. Slowly but surely I started to feel more and more comfortable with commenting more often and asking questions until eventually I started writing my own take on planners. It definitely is something you have to “get” in order to appreciate. Leaving my planner open to all kinds of people makes me feel a little vulnerable, that I’m telling them everything about myself without ever saying a thing, that I’m allowing them a peek into my underwear drawer. (Though, more than likely, all my planner says about me is how structured I am and no one really cares what I have written in there.)

I wish I could be revealing enough to leave my planner open at work all day long. Maybe it’s just me – maybe I’m the only one who feels this way. But it’s a private thing. My planner is my life and I don’t let just anyone look into it without my approval to do so, at least not until I get to know them and feel comfortable enough to show what’s behind the scenes.