Maybe you already have a calendar. Perhaps it's even a beautifully color-coded Google Calendar. Your appointments are in there. Your meetings are in there. You know when your next dentist appointment is and when that report is due. And yet, somehow, you still regularly reach the end of the day wondering: Where did all my time go? The problem isn't necessarily that we don't plan. Many of us plan quite a lot. We make lists, buy planners, download productivity apps and create elaborate schedules.

I know quite a lot about perfectionism. Sometimes it shows up in my projects, such as writing an article. I'll sit in front of an empty document knowing roughly what I want to say, but get stuck trying to find exactly the right opening sentence. I write something, delete it, try again and suddenly half an hour has passed and I have almost nothing to show for it. But perfectionism also appears in much more mundane parts of my life. Take cleaning up a room. You might think this is a fairly straightforward task: pick things up, put them where they belong, get rid of what you no longer need.

Have you ever noticed how easy it is to make ambitious plans and how much harder it is to keep them? Maybe you've decided that this is the week you'll finally start studying every day. Or perhaps you've promised yourself you'll exercise regularly, keep your home organized, learn a new language, or stop leaving everything until the last minute. For a few days, everything goes beautifully. You're motivated. You have a color-coded schedule.