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Abstract

e a better planner.</p><h2 id="9dfa">A Better Planner</h2><p id="1364">One of the challenges of planning is that we tend to think of life as linear. We are always looking towards the future in our goals. Trouble is that goal setting is often about getting something new, something that we don’t yet have.</p><p id="37cc">It could be to become more fit, it could be to make more money, it could be to improve our relationships — the specifics don’t really matter. It’s generally that we are going to change some part of our life by either becoming or acquiring something we don’t yet have. More love, more health, more money, more creativity. You get the idea.</p><p id="ee49">The challenge is that we are creatures of habits — patterns really — who are used to doing things a certain way. Reaching our goal usually means we have to change some things.</p><p id="f06c">Meet more people to cultivate new relationships.</p><p id="302c">Exercise and eat differently to acquire more health.</p><p id="b5a5">Create new products to generate new income streams.</p><p id="ab20">You get the idea again.</p><p id="cde4">Where goal setting gets stuck is that we charge ahead, often at the start of the new year, and decide we are going to make these often big changes without any input from who we were in the past.</p><h2 id="0fa6">Planning with Past You</h2><p id="a2d5">Past You and Me are used to doing things a certain way. And while they absolutely want us to reach our goals, we haven’t consulted them and included them in the process so they aren’t able to share their wisdom unless we visit the Past Floor of the Time Traveler Hotel.</p><p id="9f5e">Yes indeed, an entire floor of the Time Traveler Hotel is a doorway into the past. Actually, there are 9 doors when you get off the Time Travel Elevator on the Past Floor. Each door opens into a story of your life in the year-that-has-been.</p><p id="3bc5">I like to spend 10 days with Past Me, just a few minutes each day remembering the past to understand the habits and patterns I have been inhabiting. I review my stories of health, wealth, love, and more to write a Postcard from the Past to gain the wisdom and experience of my Past Self. It helps me decide what to clean up and what to bring into the future.</p><h2 id="05ba">A Future Postcard Too</h2><p id="5050">Then I ride the Time Travel Elevator to the Future Floor of the hotel. Ride wit

Options

h me. The Future Floor has a panoramic view, the highest spot in the land to see far out into the future. There is a Time Travel Telescope, the lens helps us look into the distant future — say one year or even farther into the future. The lens can be adjusted to seasonal landmarks, monthly landmarks, weekly, even daily.</p><p id="7e2b">But for now, with the help of Future Me and Future You, let’s stay focused on the one-year lens. And we start to get a big-picture view of where we are going. Look, there is Future You and Me making our way down the path into the future.</p><p id="aad6">Future You is a real being, just living a little farther down the path. They have things and experiences you don’t. Not yet. And they are ready to help you enter into the 9 Doors at the Time Traveler Hotel to choose the future. They will help you write a Postcard from the Future in the days ahead.</p><h2 id="7821">Present You Brings It All Together</h2><p id="71f9">Finally, let’s ride the Time Travel Elevator to the Present Floor of the hotel. I like to spend the final 10 days of the month of January, that month dedicated to Roman Time Traveler Janus — to commit to the future and past vision of my life story. Present You and Present Me can open 9 more doors and choose the thoughts, feelings, actions, and interactions — the habits — that will serve us in the days, weeks, and months ahead. This becomes our Postcard from the Present. We will live it every day.</p><p id="0994">January is a crossroads month where we stand between the year-that-was and the year-that-will-be. We can use our time-traveling abilities to explore this choice point with our Past and Future Self, and then step powerfully into the present with a plan that honors both the past and the future.</p><p id="d603">We become the change we most wish to see in our life and world. We write the world in the days, weeks, and months ahead, just a little bit each day.</p><p id="5f7d">So. Did I get you on board with my planning mania?</p><p id="4619">T<b>IME TRAVELING AT HOME </b>Get out your favorite writing supplies… a journal, notebook, sketchpad, poster board, assorted pens, pencils, or highlighters. Use them to craft three Time Travel Postcards. Your Past, Present, and Future Self will be filling up these Postcards with past or future memories, goals, sketches, and more in the days and weeks ahead.</p></article></body>

Check-in to the Time Traveler Hotel

January is a great time to choose the future

The Time Traveler Hotel is a Crossroads between the Past and Future. In Ashland, Oregon it is found at the tallest building in town, the Ashland Springs Hotel. (image by author)

I have to admit it. I love planning. I start and end my day with it. It is an important part of my life. Most of my family and friends are more than a little baffled by my deep love of planning.

So I decided that it was the stories about planning that were getting in the way of others loving planning as much as I do. The linear logical thinking around planning and goal setting. And all those failed New Year’s resolutions probably didn’t help either.

I needed a better story about planning to get others on board with my planning mania.

Then one day I stumbled upon the Time Traveler Hotel. It’s a real place. You can visit it if you come to my hometown of Ashland, Oregon. A stately historic landmark called the Ashland Springs Hotel. But I recognized it almost immediately as a time travel portal.

Well, actually I had some help from my friend Dave. Dave is a pirate (I am not speaking in metaphor, he literally is a professional pirate which is a story for another day.)

So Pirate Dave is a friend that I depend upon for understanding things about the Invisible Secret Storyworld. When he texted me that there was a Time Observer in the Ashland Springs Hotel I hot-footed it to the hotel to see it for myself.

The Time Observer is a lovely curio display comprised of relics and timepieces, confirming my suspicions of the hotel’s time-traveling capability. The hotel’s beautiful lobby is styled to feel as if you are stepping back in time to the 1940s. Curio cabinets line the great rooms, filled with horticultural and aviary specimens (you do know that birds are descendants of dinosaurs, right? Remember that, because dinosaurs are eventually going to show up in this time travel adventure.)

But back to my love of planning and its connection to the Time Travel Hotel. I realized that the hotel could be used to make a better planner.

A Better Planner

One of the challenges of planning is that we tend to think of life as linear. We are always looking towards the future in our goals. Trouble is that goal setting is often about getting something new, something that we don’t yet have.

It could be to become more fit, it could be to make more money, it could be to improve our relationships — the specifics don’t really matter. It’s generally that we are going to change some part of our life by either becoming or acquiring something we don’t yet have. More love, more health, more money, more creativity. You get the idea.

The challenge is that we are creatures of habits — patterns really — who are used to doing things a certain way. Reaching our goal usually means we have to change some things.

Meet more people to cultivate new relationships.

Exercise and eat differently to acquire more health.

Create new products to generate new income streams.

You get the idea again.

Where goal setting gets stuck is that we charge ahead, often at the start of the new year, and decide we are going to make these often big changes without any input from who we were in the past.

Planning with Past You

Past You and Me are used to doing things a certain way. And while they absolutely want us to reach our goals, we haven’t consulted them and included them in the process so they aren’t able to share their wisdom unless we visit the Past Floor of the Time Traveler Hotel.

Yes indeed, an entire floor of the Time Traveler Hotel is a doorway into the past. Actually, there are 9 doors when you get off the Time Travel Elevator on the Past Floor. Each door opens into a story of your life in the year-that-has-been.

I like to spend 10 days with Past Me, just a few minutes each day remembering the past to understand the habits and patterns I have been inhabiting. I review my stories of health, wealth, love, and more to write a Postcard from the Past to gain the wisdom and experience of my Past Self. It helps me decide what to clean up and what to bring into the future.

A Future Postcard Too

Then I ride the Time Travel Elevator to the Future Floor of the hotel. Ride with me. The Future Floor has a panoramic view, the highest spot in the land to see far out into the future. There is a Time Travel Telescope, the lens helps us look into the distant future — say one year or even farther into the future. The lens can be adjusted to seasonal landmarks, monthly landmarks, weekly, even daily.

But for now, with the help of Future Me and Future You, let’s stay focused on the one-year lens. And we start to get a big-picture view of where we are going. Look, there is Future You and Me making our way down the path into the future.

Future You is a real being, just living a little farther down the path. They have things and experiences you don’t. Not yet. And they are ready to help you enter into the 9 Doors at the Time Traveler Hotel to choose the future. They will help you write a Postcard from the Future in the days ahead.

Present You Brings It All Together

Finally, let’s ride the Time Travel Elevator to the Present Floor of the hotel. I like to spend the final 10 days of the month of January, that month dedicated to Roman Time Traveler Janus — to commit to the future and past vision of my life story. Present You and Present Me can open 9 more doors and choose the thoughts, feelings, actions, and interactions — the habits — that will serve us in the days, weeks, and months ahead. This becomes our Postcard from the Present. We will live it every day.

January is a crossroads month where we stand between the year-that-was and the year-that-will-be. We can use our time-traveling abilities to explore this choice point with our Past and Future Self, and then step powerfully into the present with a plan that honors both the past and the future.

We become the change we most wish to see in our life and world. We write the world in the days, weeks, and months ahead, just a little bit each day.

So. Did I get you on board with my planning mania?

TIME TRAVELING AT HOME Get out your favorite writing supplies… a journal, notebook, sketchpad, poster board, assorted pens, pencils, or highlighters. Use them to craft three Time Travel Postcards. Your Past, Present, and Future Self will be filling up these Postcards with past or future memories, goals, sketches, and more in the days and weeks ahead.