Planning Isn’t Doing

“The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry” - Robert Burns

I’ve always loved to plan . The act of making lists, organizing tasks, timing everything out, and finding a slot in my schedule for each thing is almost meditative. I’ve been like this ever since I was little. I took great pride in having everything documented in my planner, would have lists for everything I needed to do and took extreme pleasure in checking items off those lists.

Planning is satisfying because when I’m in planning mode, everything can be perfect - almost like a fantasy. If everything goes according to the plan, I’ll end up with these great results. While I’m planning, I can see the end - the success, the feeling of accomplishment.

I know I’m not the only one who feels this way. There is comfort in planning out goals and tasks down to the most minute detail. It can be addicting. But all this planning without execution is worthless.

Many people do enjoy jumping right into the action. They want to get started right away, and believe too much time is wasted on planning everything out. Obviously, I am not one of those people, but I also don’t necessarily believe my way is better.

Executing on my plans is terrifying because now things can go in many different directions. If things go wrong, then I’ll have to create a new plan to get things back to the original plan. Worse still, things can change completely and my carefully crafted plan will be rendered obsolete and an entirely new plan will have to take its place. The plan I took so much care to create will become worthless.

The risk of the unknown, and of change, is what makes executing so exciting for some people but so daunting for others. Having to constantly reevaluate your plans and adjust them is taxing and tiring. Planning can be tedious, but it’s safe and comfortable. Executing can be more glamorous, but it’s often slow, painful, and potentially leads to failure.

However, at some point you have to make the switch from planning to executing, otherwise nothing will ever truly get done. Finding the right balance between the two activities is the key. Ultimately, executing will teach you so much more about your goal than the planning process ever could. And once you learn more about executing, you can improve your plans, which will improve your executions, and on and on.

This way of thinking isn’t just important at an individual level, it has become important for large corporations as well. It’s especially popular in the software industry where agile project management has really taken off. Agile doesn’t just mean having great reflexes, it refers to a way of working that is iterative with short bursts of executing interspersed with short spurts of planning. This way, teams can constantly improve and adjust as they gain knowledge, rather than trying to stick to a potentially outdated plan.

The same is true for our own personal goals. I’d love to spend all my days planning, and sometimes I do! The fear of failure still keeps me stuck sometimes. I usually have to trick myself into starting. I use the tactic I talked about last week, or convince myself it’s just an ‘experiment’ and that I’m not actually starting something, or I simply wait for the moment where the momentum jumps out of my skin and take advantage of it while it lasts.

I never consider my planning periods wasted energy. Being able to foresee next steps and create contingencies for potential risks and pitfalls is a worthwhile effort. However, I know I’m starting to overstay my welcome in this period when I am coming up with possibilities that have a minuscule chance of happening, or I’ve planned beyond the next three months. Then the exercise becomes a crutch and I am merely putting off my execution phase. A good plan is valuable knowledge, but a great plan should empower you to start that very same plan.