Planning styles and love languages

Watching Jake plan our anniversary weekend has been like getting a master class in project management.

Planning styles and love languages

He’s got spreadsheets with color-coded tabs for restaurants (organized by cuisine type and price range), hiking trails (sorted by difficulty and estimated time), and backup indoor activities in case of rain. There are backup plans for the backup plans.

Meanwhile, my entire contribution to this process was scribbling a grocery list on the back of an envelope.

My contribution to the planning process.

Snacks for the car ride, wine for the cabin, ingredients for one simple dinner we can cook together. Done.

At first I felt a little guilty about not matching his energy, like maybe I should be researching and cross-referencing too. But then I realized something watching him work tonight – he genuinely loves this part. The research, the optimization, the contingency planning. It’s not stress for him; it’s excitement. And my role isn’t to duplicate what he’s doing, it’s to bring what I bring: spontaneity, presence, the ability to find magic in whatever moment we stumble into.

We balance each other out in the best way. He makes sure we don’t end up hungry and lost on a mountain trail. I make sure we don’t miss the sunset because we’re too busy checking items off a list. Both approaches have value. Both are acts of love, just expressed differently.