STEVE PAVLINA

Planning is such hard work. And it’s hard to keep plans up to date. So why do it?

The best advice I can give here is to try it both ways and see for yourself. Although it would be best to do this over a reasonably long period of time, such as 90 days, you can do a simple experiment in just a couple days. One day, don’t create a plan for your day, and just see what happens — live and work as you normally would. If you want, you can even use yesterday for this first part. But the night before the second day, set aside about 30 minutes to set clear goals for your next day (three interesting goals is a good number), and plan out the details of those goals to create a to do list. Then write up a schedule for your day — not just your workday, but the entire day from when you wake up until when you’ll go to sleep. Aim for a challenging day but one you think you can still do; push yourself a bit, but keep it achievable. Think about what you would consider the absolute best use of that day. And do this planning work alone, quietly, and with no distractions. Then live that day with according to your written plan to the best of your ability.

Then after living though days one and day two, you decide which you like better. You can take notes about what you experienced at the end of each day, or you can just go by feel; maybe rate each day on a scale of 1 to 10. Think about where you’ll be in a year if you experience 365 day ones vs. 365 day twos. Note that there isn’t a proscribed right or wrong answer here. The choice depends on your personal values.

What you’re likely to experience on day two is that things don’t go quite according to plan. That’s common. But even though it probably didn’t go according to plan perfectly, how well did it go compared to day one? Were the results better or worse? And was it worth the extra 30 or so minutes to create the plan?

Now, if you don’t want to take a whole day to do this, I’ll give you a shorter version. Set aside two 2-hour blocks of time during your day today. It doesn’t matter when they occur, but it would be best if they are times when your energy level is about equal and the level of interruptions you’ll experience is roughly the same. If you can’t get equivalent 2-hour blocks on the same day, then use the same time period on two separate days. For the first 2-hour block, just do what you’d normally do during that time period. That’s your control. In fact, if you want to make it the previous two hours you’ve just experienced, that would probably be fine too. But for the second two-hour block, spend the first 15 minutes making a detailed to do list of everything you want to get done in that block, and then schedule the remaining 1:45 at least to the granularity of 15-minute increments. Then follow your plan. See which time block you like better.

Yes, it’s hard to keep plans up to date, but the plan itself isn’t as important as the habit of planning. It’s the idea of using a vision of the future to sharpen your present-moment decisions that is the real key to planning. The benefit of a written plan is that it allows you to instantly refresh that vision of the future at any time just by reading it.

What’s the connection between planning and visualization?

I see planning as a tool for visualization instead of vice versa. Planning allows you to mentally create a model of your future. And a written plan allows you to keep that model consistent. Every plan is inaccurate to some degree because we don’t really know how the future will turn out. And the future is purely a mental construct — an illusion — because you never exist in the future, only in the present. So planning and visualization don’t create the future. All they can do is affect your present. But by using a consistent, internally congruent vision of the future to make decisions day after day, you start to build momentum, and you’ll ultimately achieve your goals.

I don’t create plans now, and I don’t have a problem achieving my goals most of the time. Planning seems overkill. So why bother with it?

If you don’t have any really big goals, you don’t need a plan. But then, you’re probably selling yourself short in your goal-setting. For example, if you have a job and set a goal to increase your income by 10% this year, and you pretty much expect that to happen if you just continue working as you always have been, then why would you need a detailed written plan for that? You wouldn’t. But that’s a rather impotent goal, isn’t it?

Now what if you set an ambitious goal to increase your income by 100% this year? And you see that it’s virtually impossible for that to happen passively at your present job. Now you’ve got to pull the ol’ brain out of the cobwebs and do some thinking. This is a situation where you have to think about where you want to be a year from now to know what you need to do during the next 30 or 90 days. It’s probably not at all clear what the first step should be. Chances are good that there is a way to achieve this goal, but the path to get there isn’t obvious. This goal will require you to be proactive and consistent in your actions; you can’t just passively coast your way to an ambitious goal like this one.

Now imagine the above scenario…. what if after about 15 hours of work, you could produce a written step-by-step plan showing you exactly what you need to do to increase your income by 100% over the next year? It tells you very clearly what you must begin doing this very week in order to get started. And the plan makes sense to you — it won’t be easy, but it’s pretty clear that if you follow it, you probably will achieve your goal. Would those 15 hours be a worthwhile investment?

On the other hand, what is likely to happen if you try to increase your income by 100%, and you don’t have a plan to get there, but you still try to make the best choices you can? Most likely you’ll be a lot more hesitant and uncertain in your decision making, and that will likely lead you to procrastinate. Should you try to work towards a big promotion within your company? Look for a new job? Quit and start your own business full-time? Begin building a part-time business while keeping your day job? Try doing consulting work on the side? You’ll never feel too confident about any of these choices until and unless you can paint yourself a clear mental picture of where each path will lead you.

Fuzzy thinking leads to hesitancy in acting. Clear thinking makes it easier to act boldly and consistently. And really ambitious goals generally require bold and consistent action.

So if you feel you don’t really need to plan, chances are you’re not setting very challenging goals to begin with, and you probably aren’t stretching yourself much. And if that’s how you want to live, that’s perfectly fine, but then why are you reading this blog? Why not take on something a bit more ambitious? Set a goal to double your income in a year… or write your own book and get it published… or spend a month in a country you’ve never been to… or quit smoking and lose 50 pounds… whatever truly inspires you.

One nice thing is that for many goals, there are already pre-made plans to get you there. For example, if you want to run a marathon, there are pre-planned six-month training programs you can follow, such that if you just follow them blindly each day, you will gradually build up the needed level of endurance, and you’ll be able to at least finish the 26.2 miles on race day. It doesn’t mean that pre-made plans are any easier to follow than the ones you make yourself from scratch, but using other people’s plans can definitely save you some time.

I tried to create written plans once, but my plans never worked out. So I just sort of gave up on that whole concept. Am I just broken?

You’re not broken. Planning is very, very difficult to do well. It’s a skill like any other that takes tremendous patience and practice to learn. If you sit down and create a plan, and it doesn’t work, then don’t use that setback as a reason to blame planning itself. Rather consider that you simply need to continue to build your skill at planning and/or execution. Being able to set an ambitious goal, create a plan to achieve it, and then work the plan all the way to victory is a skill that can take a lifetime to master.