Being organised and planning ahead

I think it's partly temperament, but mostly it comes down to what your circumstances have forced on you. People who juggle a job, children and an elderly parent tend to become organised out of sheer necessity, because one missed appointment sets off a chain of problems, whereas someone with few commitments can afford to be vague about their week. Upbringing plays a part too: if you grew up in a house where bags were packed the night before, that habit tends to stick. As for schools, I do think they should teach it, though not as a separate subject. What works is building it into ordinary work, like asking pupils to break a month-long project into weekly deadlines and then letting them feel the consequences when they leave it all to the last night. That said, I'd be wary of overdoing it, because a child whose every hour is timetabled by adults never learns to manage unstructured time, which is the very skill they will need at university. Looking ahead, I suspect technology will make us look more organised without actually making us so. A shared calendar and a reminder app mean I never forget a meeting, but they also let me outsource my memory completely, so the moment my phone dies I'm lost. So my guess is that the tools will keep improving while the underlying discipline quietly weakens, and the people who stay organised will be those who still decide their own priorities rather than simply obeying notifications.