Corrected: Are You a Planning Perfectionist?

Join us for a Free Fall Planning Workshop!

Photo by Marissa Grootes on Unsplash

Apologies for the duplicate email! Here’s the corrected link to sign up for the workshop.

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Greetings, dear readers!

Are you a planning perfectionist?

A planning perfectionist can craft a flawless, color-coded schedule worthy of a museum exhibit—only to watch it unravel faster than a cheap sweater in the spin cycle two weeks into the semester.

At the start, you picture yourself writing every morning for three hours, gliding into class perfectly prepared, answering emails with impressive speed, and even taking leisurely afternoon walks. Nothing goes wrong, nothing extra lands on your plate, and you become the version of yourself who is both wildly productive and completely serene.

It sounds wonderful, but let’s get real—does the semester ever really go like this? More often, two weeks in the grading piles up, committee meetings sprout like weeds, the inbox multiplies overnight, and that beautifully color-coded plan gets shoved to the back of your desk drawer. You think you’re bad at planning, but the truth is you’re planning for a fantasy. And since you can’t do it perfectly, you abandon the plan.

My best advice? Start with your real life—the actual shape of your teaching, service, and personal commitments—not the “best semester ever” version that never seems to arrive.

That’s exactly what we’ll focus on in my upcoming Fall Writing Planning Workshop.

This will be a hands-on 60-minute session where I guide you through my straightforward process for creating a plan you can actually follow. We’ll:

• Set good, better, best writing goals that adapt to your workload

• Take a clear-eyed look at your time so your plan works in practice, not just in theory

• Block writing sessions into your schedule before they get swallowed by everything else

Most scholars I know overestimate their available writing time. This workshop is about making peace with reality and still carving out the space you need for your scholarship.

You’ll leave with a plan that feels achievable instead of aspirational burnout fuel. I’ll also spend a few minutes introducing my 10-week program, Flourish: Cultivating a Sustainable Writing Practice, and explain how it can help you follow through on the goals you set in the workshop.

Choose your session:

• Thursday, August 21 at 1pm ET | 7pm CEST

• Monday, August 25 at 12pm ET | 6pm CEST

A replay will be available for registrants, so sign up even if you can’t attend live.

Let’s make this the semester where your writing plan works for you and not the other way around!