I spent the period between Christmas and New Year planning. I thought more carefully than I've ever done before. I went into more detail than I've ever done before.I gave myself big goals but instead of leaving them at that, I broke them down into manageable steps and then broke those steps down into tasks.It's not enough to say I want to sell more art if I don't figure out how I am going to behave differently in order to make that happen. So, I made a long list of things I need to do to in order to reach each of my goals.If all goes to plan, this will be a well-organised year!BUT....How often does everything go to plan? I am always conscious of this lyric from a John Lennon song (which I think he took from a Reader's Digest article):"Life is what happens to us while we're busy making other plans."To make these words even more poignant, they come from a song on the "Double Fantasy" album, which Lennon was recording at the time he was shot. (It was later released posthumously).Life really does happen to us while we are busy making other plans - sometimes in the most tragic and cruel of ways, but often in less dramatic events ... a child gets sick and has to stay home from school, ruining plans to spend a day painting; you break a bone in your wrist 3 months before a big art fair; an elderly parent begins a slow decline, taking up all of your free time; or maybe the economy crashes and most people stop buying luxuries, thus dragging down your art sales.For some people, this lack of control makes planning futile. Life is going to do whatever it is going to do, they say, and we need to ride the wave.But I disagree. My biggest fear is that, when my time comes, I will have regrets about the way I spent it.I came to art-making late in life. I have no idea how long I have to spend creating paintings and teaching my courses - it could be 30 years or it could be 3 months - but I want to pack as much as I can into the time I have. I know myself well enough to know that if I don't set goals and make myself accountable, I will get distracted. I have 1,000 ideas every day and they can all pull me off course if I haven't set clear intentions.So, I plan.I'm not under any illusions about being able to control my life ... I just want to do the best I can while accepting that anything could happen.I think that's all any of us can do :)