Many of us begin each new year with resolutions, and despite their mixed success rates, they symbolize a powerful moment of renewal. Even smaller naive things like “I will quit smoking… starting Monday” have a proven psychological effect of higher success of kicking off a new habit with the beginning of a new period (week, month, year).
Still, many resolutions fail due to a lack of planning and real commitment. In a second revamp of one of the older articles, I want to delve into the essence of planning in our personal lives and professional environments. Are detailed plans and lists truly crucial, or could we thrive just as well without them?
I've always tried to think ahead, as far as I remember. I loved to create plans and write to-do lists, systemize my daily routine, optimize my workflow, and find the best way to do things more effectively. On my commute home, I’d meticulously plan out my evening, from household chores to leisure, optimizing my routine to increase productivity. This approach wasn’t just about keeping the gears busy; it was about making (or creating a sense of that) each segment of my day purposeful. The more I’ve been working with different people, the more often I’ve seen how some of them suffer from being unable to plan upfront. Furthermore, the inability to plan often gets extrapolated to the project you are working on, and then everything goes south. In my opinion, planning, especially in the long term, can make your life a lot easier.
An upfront disclaimer: don't get too obsessed with planning as when you worship the plan, you also plan to fail. For example, as we invest more effort into planning and organization initially, we see significant gains in productivity. But beyond a certain point, the extra effort brings progressively smaller returns. You can be very effective during 4 hours of non-stop working or studying, then a bit less effective during 8 hours, and way less effective when you work 12 hours straight. This is known as the diminishing returns effect (borrowed from economics).
Now, when we are prepared, let's talk about general planning cycles. I believe that self-organization is critical in the modern world. It helps you to be on time, to be efficient, and simply to be a better you. The art of effective planning involves recognizing the cycles of activity and rest that define productive work. In my university days, I discovered that mixing study sessions with physical activity (or just going out) allowed my brain to process and retain information more effectively. This balance is not merely beneficial but necessary. Continuous work without adequate breaks leads to burnout and diminished returns, despite high engagement levels. Moreover, resting, i.e., playing a game or watching a movie, simply, feels better when it happens after some effort compared to doing only a fun activity.
This cycle of “doing job - recharging - doing job” is a working technique that helps to achieve the best performance on a daily basis. To plan effectively, it's important to identify the larger cycles of work and rest throughout the year. This might mean planning intense work periods followed by vacations or lighter work phases, allowing for recovery and reflection.
For example, striving to lose weight without planning for gradual progress can lead to frustration and setbacks—you don't get fit, rich, successful, or famous overnight. Employing the SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, Time-bound) framework can help set realistic milestones, making an audacious goal more manageable and less overwhelming.
Sometimes Ethic and Reasonable are also added to the equation to make this framework SMARTER but I think it is over-complication. You can set up the goal without SMART, it just makes identifying how to reach it easier. In the aforementioned example, the goal would be something like “I want to lose 10 kg by next summer to fit in those jeans I wore in high school”. This will be your final goal that should be split into several smaller intermediate goals which will serve as milestones to mark your progress: reduce your carb intake to be X, build a morning running habit, attend gym Y times a week, lose Z kg by PERIOD, etc. Each one can also be set as a SMART goal to help you keep a track record of your achievements. When all the goals are set up, you need to identify what you need to reach them in terms of resources - how much time and money, what food/equipment/software, and so on. And as with every achievement, you need to reward yourself, just don’t be counterproductive with the rewards, i.e. don't reward good workout with junk food.
This example goal - lose 10 kilos - is just a part of your “goal matrix” that might also include something like “get a promotion by the end of the year to earn $5000/mo”, “read 11 books every year”, “go skiing for the first time”. To fulfill every goal, you will add it to your daily schedule, like “run 5 km every morning from 8 am to 9 am”, “go to the gym 3 times a week”, “read for an hour every evening”, etc.
Sometimes plans can seem really boring, and you can give yourself some rest (pro tip: the rest phase can also be planned). This doesn’t mean that you should forget about your global goals or skip routine every week. But when you are hanging out with friends, having a good time and then suddenly remember you need to go to bed before 10 pm to wake up at 6:30 am for your daily morning jogging, you can sometimes allow yourself to move sleeping time for a couple of hours. And if you still wake up in time for a run, you will feel like a hero, I promise. This “cheating” is allowed from time to time to relieve some stress from a tight schedule; just don't do it twice in a row, as it may break the habitual behavior. It is like driving on a highway: if there are just a few potholes on a perfect road - that’s acceptable, but you can’t speed comfortably on a bumpy road.
The same principles apply in the workplace. Effective project management involves setting clear, achievable goals while remaining adaptable. This balance prevents teams from becoming overly fixated on initial plans that may no longer be relevant as project dynamics evolve. Regularly revisiting and revising project plans—through retrospectives or SWOT analyses—ensures that strategies remain aligned with current objectives and team capacities.
The manager should not tell the team members what to do exactly or, on the contrary, go with vague goals like “impress me” (true story). There should be a balance of tasks that creatively limit you with some constraints and still give freedom in terms of reaching goals. Of course, you can’t do absolutely whatever you want: your company probably has a vision and there is a good reason for that. But that vision should allow space for people to express themselves as professionals and contribute meaningfully to come up with the best solutions/products in the end of the day. The planning process for the project looks very similar to what I’ve described earlier, though it requires some additional preparation because of the more complex structure and more people involved.
The question is: do those planning processes help to improve something or are they just a waste of precious time that can be spent more effectively? While I believe that different teams and projects require different approaches, I’ve seen how a lack of planning can derail projects. I’ve also witnessed the pitfalls of rigid adherence to plans. Both scenarios underscore the need for a flexible, informed approach to planning, and that approach should be reviewed regularly to adjust.
Planning in the development process not only helps to shape the project but also helps in many other ways: to motivate the developers, to track the progress, to spot the problems earlier and to avoid them, to see if you are heading in the right direction... With each iteration, the estimations become more accurate, the process more streamlined, and the team more aligned. All these things affect the number of tasks you can tackle in the same time period and, in the end, your efficiency as a team.
Planning is another valuable soft skill that can be applied in literally every area, but don’t get too crazy about it: your plans can and often will be subject to change. This doesn't happen only if you don't have any plans at all or if you plan was poo from the start, this happens also because of the things you can't affect or predict. So when this happens - don't lose your head and take it easy. Do not let your plans give you a false feeling of total control. Remember that planning is there to support your goals and not to dictate how you should reach them. If something does not work - pivot, never be attached to your plans too much. Over-planning can lead to a state where the time spent making and adjusting plans outweighs any efficiency gains, moving the needle towards inefficiency. While having clear objectives is important, an overemphasis on them can lead us to miss out on unexpected opportunities and insights. It can also lead to stress and a conservative mindset that struggles to adapt to new information or changing circumstances.
In conclusion, whether you’re crafting New Year's resolutions or outlining major projects, the key to effective planning isn’t in the plans themselves but in how they are used. As we navigate the complexities of both life and work, let us plan thoughtfully but remain ready to embrace the unplanned.
