Creative Reaction

An insightful post courtesy of Psychology Today discusses “the planning fallacy”, the phenomenon where, despite our best efforts, and even with the knowledge that planning is often wrong, we still cannot plan accurately.

In Why Planning is Counter-productive, Pt II, we discussed one tactic, which is to simply start doing and skip planning altogether!

If you must plan, Psychology Today suggests the following steps:

1. consider how long it has taken you in the past,
2. identify the ways in which things might not go as planned, and
3. spell out all the steps you will need to take to get it done

All of the above will make the time needed to complete the project seem insanely long and you will be tempted to not to believe this estimate, however, you must condition yourself to think this way. This can be applied whether you are simply planning your day or a multi-departmental project.

Via 43Folders, I came across this fascinating post on project planning and as it promises, it will change your life.

The article discusses what researchers call “Hofstadter’s Law”, which can be summed up this way: “we know everything always takes longer than expected; we just seem to forget, again and again”.

Our finite minds cannot plan for unforeseen problems because they can’t foresee them.

Which explains why even the “list-makers among us get up each day and make to-do lists that by the same evening will seem laughable”. We are simply setting ourselves up for disappointment.

The two solutions are equally counter-intuitive;

1. Plan in the broadest terms possible, or
2. Simply do things without planning

Quoting the author, “sometimes, the secret to getting things done is just to do them.”

Read the post; bookmark it; print it out; e-mail it to everyone you care about –  it’s that important.