Planning less, working more from instinct

When planning is about protecting, what does it mean to prepare?

A silly exercise set up in an R&D from my work on a show is 2017

I’m shit at planning things. I always have been. I like possibilities but I don’t really like actually deciding on the one way things will be.

Annoyingly, I’ve often found myself in roles where planning is required/the norm. I’ve been a workshop facilitator, a teacher, a theatre-maker (i.e. project manager), a DJ and now head up the program of an arts charity. I’ve been quite hard on myself about struggling with planning in the past, that it means I’m bad at what I do. But in all these contexts I’ve noticed a couple things that show up for me:

1. When I’m new at something, I spend a lot of time thinking about the plan, I write very thorough detailed plans.

2. As time goes on, if I continue to plan, the sessions where I plan in detail or try to plan interesting/novel activities often do worse than the ones where I plan lightly.

3. That as I grow more confident, I plan less. I’m more present with the room. Things go better, more interesting things emerge.

It makes me think of planning as a kind of armor. It’s something that feels important when I feel vulnerable. It makes me feel safe, because it means that irrelevant of what happens I’ll know what to do.

But that’s the thing right. Irrelevant of what happens. But what happens, who shows up, what they offer, the awkwardnesses, the laughs, the moments of magic. That’s the stuff. That’s the whole point. So the plan actually can be a barrier to the work, if held too tightly to your chest.

Armor is useful to protect you if you are going into battle. Not so useful if you want to listen and respond to what people need. The big metal helmet with the little eye holes kinda gets in the way.

I think running a youth theatre taught me this best. Whenever I had planned to bring an exciting new tool or practice into the room, something that I thought was clever and cool, the kids would find it boring. When I came in genuinely interested in them, and put the problem to them of what we should do, we created silly, playful magical moments that ending up much more relevant for the work we ending up doing together.

In Emergent Strategy, one of the principles adrienne marie brown outlines is:

Less prep, more presence

This is what I aspire to. To be more with the room I am in, with the people I’m working with and alive to what we need to engage. There is a kind of preparation or readiness that matters here, but not necessarily a detailed plan on a piece of paper. It’s more a preparing of yourself to be present, to listen to people, the room, the stuff around the edges.

What that often means for me is taking time to transition into that mode, landing in the room, leaving my phone to one side. Some deep breaths. A big bottle of water. Put some music on out loud. Sometimes a little shake, or a stretch if I’m feeling particularly theatre-y. I like to take my shoes off too.

It also means good sleep, nourishing food, rest, therapy, nourishing time with people I love. It means prioritising being in spaces and around people that permission me to show up as my full self. Because these things give me space to have a healthy relationship to myself, which allows me to be present and recieve people’s responses in the room.

It’s worth saying this is my experience, and informed by the way my brain works. I think that whatever allows you to show up in a present way is the priority, and for some people I’m sure that looks much more like planning. My offer is to consider what is needed for you to show up and be ready, and make that your preparation. That’s different from what might be the standard thing that actually makes you feel more disconnected.

Naming the inspo (a.k.a. Bibliography)

• Emergent Strategy- adrienne marie brown

• Holding Change- adrienne marie brown

• Sitting in the Fire- Arnold Mindell

• The infinite Playground- Bernie de Koven with Holly Gromozio

• Braiding Sweetgrass- Robin Wall Kimmerer