One of the biggest myths in all of productivity and time management is the belief that being organized or having a grip on your life keeps you from having any agility, spontaneity, or ability to act on an impulse to do something last minute.  “But if I have everything planned, what happens when I want to disappear to Vegas for the weekend” the purposely disorganized cry!  It’s important to realize that, in fact, the opposite happens.  Once you have control over your priorities, you also have the freedom to explore without guilt.

Spontaneity is what happens when when you have a grip on everything else.

Spontaneity is defined as behavior that is natural and unconstrained and is the result of impulse, not planning.  In this context, it’s easy to jump to the conclusion that spontaneity is both “unconstrained” and is only made possible through a lack of planning.  But there’s a subtlety here that may not be immediately apparent.  Spontaneity (as defined here) implies that the behavior exhibited is the “result of impulse”, but not that the behavior couldn’t be better supported through a lack of planning.  And defining spontaneous behavior as unconstrained is, in my opinion, invalid.  There isn’t any human behavior that’s truly without constraint – everything we do has constraints, whether avoidable or not.

In truth, spontaneity is inherently constrained and while is the result of impulse, is actually enabled through proper planning around it.

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