My wife has repeatedly said I am a natural planner.
When we take a weekend trip to a neighboring town—particularly since we have both been taking college classes—I will inevitably work with her to figure out what places we need/want to visit on the trip before calculating a route to cover each stop and plan out the shopping list for any stores we are going to.
Some might call this anal-retentive. But I think it’s just prudent when many of these trips are an hour or so from the house. The last thing I want is for us to talk about stopping somewhere, then forget about it and regret it when we inevitably remember on the drive home.
I’m not sure where this tendency comes from. Perhaps it originates from my work as a journalist, planning when I needed to leave to attend a community meeting or sporting event. Maybe it is a natural tendency. I don’t know.
It also comes through in my digital bullet journaling. I wrote about that last month in “A Work in Progress.” (And, for those asking, yes, I am continuing to use—and develop my Obsidian workflow.)
So, naturally, my curiosity was piqued when I saw The Guardian had published the article “Being organised and active may be predictor of longer life, study finds.”
Researchers from several universities studied more than 22,000 adults to examine how they viewed themselves and how that relates to living a long life.
The key findings include:
- People who described themselves as “active” had around a 21% lower risk of dying during the study period—even after controlling for age, gender and pre-existing medical conditions.
- Other words associated with longer life included: “organised”, “responsible”, “hard-working”, “thorough” and “helpful”.
- On the flip side, persons who self-reported being “moody”, “anxious,” or “easily upset” (traits tied to neuroticism) tended to have higher mortality risk.
- Interestingly, these specific words predicted lifespan better than the broader personality categories. For example, it wasn’t just “being conscientious”—it was “being thorough” or “being hard-working” that had stronger links.
The researchers hypothesize that people who think of themselves as “active” or “organized” may be better at keeping healthy routines, such as exercise, diet, medical check-ups, or taking medications as prescribed.
This definitely gives me something to think about. Although I do consider myself organized, active is not a word I would use to describe myself. With the end of my studies about a month away, I will definitely be getting away from the computer and getting more active.
PHOTO CREDIT: This pair of pages shows hand-drawn and hand-written entries in a Bullet Journal. (by Matt Ragland via Wikimedia)
