No Plans Days as an Autistic Tool

My favorite response to the question, “What are you doing tomorrow?” is, “Absolutely nothing!”

There is so much freedom in a day that has no plans. I call them no plans days — days where I have no scheduled meetings, social events, appointments … NOTHING.

It all began when I decided to stop pursuing relentless growth and change in my private practice. It felt really nice to not push so hard. It also meant I didn’t need to meet with so many fellow therapists and colleagues to be talking about our businesses and how to constantly improve.

I already had implemented a strict schedule for my therapy hours months prior (M-Th afternoons), but I had filled much of my free time with meetings with fellow therapists, consultation groups, educational programs, and more. I was spending more time in superfluous meetings than in therapy meetings.

So I began reducing my superfluous meetings. The more I removed from my schedule, the more I wanted to remove. It felt so good to have more time, and it just made me want more of it.

I also began to notice that even if I had just one work-related meeting in a day, it made it feel like a work day. It was like my head went into work mode the moment I woke up. While I didn’t want to throw all of my meetings out the window, I started to consolidate them so they weren’t spread throughout the week. It felt amazing.

The more space I had, the more I could see and feel how things energetically impacted me…