Strategic planning

Strategic planning is referring to the concept of someone (myself in this case) defining a vision for the future, whereby considering the objective and planning alongside of it. The blog and my vision hasn’t changed, to be profound about it, the goal since the blog’s inception remained the same, to keep my sanity by minimizing my distractions and try to lead a healthy lifestyle with things that I truly need and doing my best not too be too big of a burden on planet earth.

Since I moved to Switzerland, first time in my life I feel that planning is really part of the culture in this country, I am surrounded with a bunch of well organized people fitting perfectly in a well organized system, probably the well organized system caused the well organized citizens, not the other way around just mentioned before.

People in general have a clear idea about the way they want to lead their lives and not just going with the flow in the most carpe diem style.

Organized recycling, taking care of the nature, being physically active, doing sports, gardening which seems really at this stage, that it is some sort of national sport and it is truly on another level than I’ve seen in other parts of the world, I mean the local folks are planting corn on the balcony which is really next level gardening, given the circumstances and when I say that they use every bit of green land to plant something, I am not exaggerating and surprisingly they plant a very wide variety of things in the most unexpected places, just see for reference the pictures I took below;

Quince, grenades, apples and all are planted in the small gardens of old/new built apartment blocks. I didn’t even know grenades are growing in this climate, but glad to know this.

I mean, this flat is a new built, let alone the apples, but they have lychee trees and chickens in the tiny garden, honestly I was shocked, but well, glad they are doing it, Swiss folks, never change please.

Yep, the corn is growing steadily on the balcony, and in the other photos, planting boxes with all sort of veggies, chilli peppers, tomatoes, salads, carrots, garlic in front of the apartment blocks planted by the local residents and the bottom right photo is an entrance packed with tomatoes and peppers and all sort of veggies of an old apartment building, I mean when I said it’s a national sport, I really meant it.

Lychee tree with the chickens in the background, up to this point I’ve never see anything like that, I couldn’t even surprise anymore on the fact that a huge pumpkin was hanging from the fence of a new built.

This inspiring climate is making it definitely easier to be more content with life, to appreciate really the important things in life. The contrast is stark compare to the United Kingdom, entirely different mentality in almost every aspect of life, here the work life balance is much better, overall less stress and of course less stimulant lifestyle in overall which comes with positive side effects, such as doing more sports, eating healthier and living more simple life here and way less opportunity for shopping and less temptation to spend money on objects even though things like clothes, entertainment are pricier but the advertisement boards and windows of shops are not so apparent part of the city life than in the UK.

These circumstances which comes with living in a smaller city compared to London does not mean I stopped planning, strategic planning is very important, one thing that I have implemented is to stop buying basically anything since I moved to Switzerland, I am referring mainly to materials such as clothes and other things, the main reason behind this strategic decision is that it’s simply super expensive compared to the United Kingdom, so I had an idea what I wanted to purchase during the year and just now that I returned to the UK, I had a smaller shopping trip, pretty much guilt free because it was planned and now reaching second part of the planning, got to keep to the one in one out rule which basically means if I bought one t-shirt than another has to go. This is a bit tricky, but working on it currently.

Managed to keep my desires within boundaries and had a clear idea what I needed to replace and with what exactly and I know as I did not shop almost at all since my January move that it was okay to do so and I really needed these items so not feeling guilty about it, now I have to part with some clothes, but it is part of the process, the issue in this part for me as clothes being my weakness that I have to try to really part with them, usually just decommission them like a t-shirt used to be my street wear can become my sleeping t-shirt, clothes I was wearing in the city becoming my gym wear and so on, because felt guilty about donating or discarding them if I can use them elsewhere as using it till they are no longer wearable is the only way to maximize its potential and don’t cause much waste if it is possible.

Incorporating planning in my life was a major game changer and the way that I structured my daily agenda and of course the less stimulant environment definitely helped tremendously this year so far and I will keep up with it, but what I can say for now is that try to plan your days than weeks, than months and so on, without a plan you’re deemed to fail.

Keep it simple because the less is more.

Yours sincerely

To/Minimal