Make the Plan Even If You Know It Won’t Happen
Just the act of making a plan has huge benefits
I’m supposed to be at a music festival in Germany right now, not at home writing this column. My friend and I made the plans months ago. For obvious reasons, that festival isn’t happening.
My kids should be preparing for camp right now. Back in January, I created a camp spreadsheet organizing where each of my four school-aged children would be during July and August. Now all those camps have been canceled as well.
When nothing goes according to plan, it’s tempting to conclude that planning is a giant waste of time. Life is unknowable. Perhaps the hours I spent organizing my children’s summer should have been spent playing with them instead.
The mismatch between plans and reality is well-documented. The project-tracking software company iDoneThis found that 41% of all to-do list items never get done. And just 15% of “dones” started as “to-do” items. We don’t do a lot of the things we plan, and we do a lot of things we don’t plan.
