Plan ahead: The mental load when your brain is the family planner

This past week, my husband and I went to a cabin in the Whiteshell, where we honeymooned oh-so many years ago, to spend five days reconnecting.

I’d like to say it was all relaxing – and it was, in that I didn’t have to do my actual job-for-money for a week, but I still had to do most of the planning, which, as planners know, is work.

I’m the de facto family planner. Not because I want to be, but because if I didn’t plan things, my life would be a soul-destroying juxtaposition of blame, boredom and chaos.

While my husband planned the food, I planned everything else, from prep to the surprise cake for his mid-week birthday to checking in on time and making sure we left instructions for taking care of our pets.

So naturally, he forgot several things. Luckily, there was a small store at the resort so we could buy butter, salad dressing, popcorn and my beloved Coke Zero. 

(I went to buy it.)

I am also the planner in emergencies. When we realized the charging station that was supposed to be near our place wasn’t working, I was the one who figured out how we were going to plug in our vehicle, since charging stations are not dotted across rural Manitoba like gas stations and Chicken Chefs are.

We did not end up having to push our electric car back to Winnipeg.

A few days before we left, I had sent out a tweet on Bluesky (yes, tweet, deal with it) asking if anyone knew a local travel agent who specialized in Japan, as we are hoping to take a bucket-list trip there next year.

A former colleague spied that tweet, then called me.

“Why do you need a travel agent? You can plan it all yourself,” he told me.

“Because ain’t nobody got time for that,” I said.

He scoffed, noting that I was a planner like him. I listened, bemused, as he uncharacteristically mansplained planning a Japan trip because he’s been there twice. Only because we’ve been friends for a decade, did I let it continue for 20 minutes before he ran out of steam.

I know how to plan things. I just want someone else to take the mental load sometimes.

My birthday is in December. As my gift to me, I think I will plan a vacation before my upcoming vacation, at an all-inclusive resort, where the only thing I have to plan every day is how many pina coladas I will drink on the beach and finding someone to sunscreen my back.

Welcome back to work!