3 Types of People You Will Find on Every Girls' Trip

In my previous post here, I talked about the importance of planning together in achieving a drama-free girls' trip. One of the things I mentioned in that post was that in my experience, you often have a planner, a doer and a follower on every girls' trip. The key is to divvy up tasks according to each type's strengths. In this post, I will be sharing my recommended approach for how to make the best of these 3 types of people on your girls' trip especially during the planning phase:

Planner

This is the project manager of the group. The girls' trip was most likely the planner's idea to start with. They are the ones that love bringing everyone together. Their role is to keep the group on track and on schedule. They are in charge of setting up the messenger group for everyone to discuss and plan the trip. They are also responsible for regular check-ins to make sure everything is on track.

Tip: The key here is to have one planner because too many planners can lead to unnecessary power struggles.

Doers

These are the people that get things done - no task is too big or too small. You will notice that I pluralised this type because there should be more than one doer in the group. The good news is, the planner and follower can be doers too. Don't leave one person to do everything even if they say it's OK, and they love getting things done, don't listen to them. Why? Because they will feel overwhelmed at some point but because this type of people are used to doing everything, they won't ask for help. So, make sure one person is not doing all the work.

Tip: The planner needs to support the doers by checking in with them on how they are going. For example, if people are making last minute changes to itineraries, the planner can step in (because the doer will continue to accommodate requests and make changes until the minute they get on the plane) and decide when changes will no longer be accepted.

Follower

We all know this person (haha). They are on the group chat but don't say anything. Or when they do, it's to type "OK" or to say things like, "I'm cool with whatever you guys decide. I'm just so excited to be coming on this trip and hang out with you all!" They are also the ones that will ask every single day of the trip, "What's the plan for today?" The thing is the follower is often a lot of fun and will make the trip a lot more interesting but they often get away with not doing anything.

Tip: The best way to optimise the follower is to assign tasks to them and in my experience, followers are good at doing what they are asked as long as it's clear.

So, which one are you? Are you the planner, doer or follower in your group? How do you play to your strengths when planning or travelling with others? Do you have any other tips for making the best of each type? I'd love to hear them!

Be well,

JJ