Do You Plan Too Much? A time management issue worth considering…
January 27, 2009 by JoAnn Corley
Filed under Time Management
If you’re reading this post at all it’s probably because you have the personality type that is a natural planner…which of course is all well and good. Hey but too much of a strength can be done in excess and planners can sometimes plan too much. They want to figure it all out before they get started.
The purpose of this post is to suggest that in some cases planning too much can be counterproductive and actually cause the very stress and time wasting that is trying to be avoided.
Consider the following possibilities:
Planning too much…
–doesn’t leave an opening for the unexpected because we think we’ve considered all the options
–subtly suggests that we can’t be flexible – that we have to do exactly as planned…after all, we spent all that time making the plan! Inflexibility can cause stress.
–may not allow us to be open to other possibilities for getting to the same goal and in a team environment, we become less collaborative.
In reality, planning too much can be a subtle deception to think we are in control, feeding our need to be in control and perhaps our need to not want to make a mistake.
If this describes you in anyway, the first tip is to recognize it!
Secondly, decide to only plan the first few steps and allow taking those steps to reveal to you the appropriate next steps in real time. Hey a bit of the unknown my service, but consider it an adventure! Decide to live life on the edge…whew!! (Alright, that’s probably a bit too much, but you know what I mean.)
In truth, most planning gets tweaked as you move forward. Action brings clarity and that’s why over planning many times is really A WASTE of time. Oh the irony!
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You said it right. Planning the first few steps and allowing things to unfold from there is a breath of fresh air. This is a great mind set for multiple projects especially when they all have the same goals, tasks and resources. I tend to over plan, because I’m too fearful to take my hands off of it. Thanks for sharing that I not only can, I must act on the edge. Love the site, JoAnn.
In fact overplanning can cause stress because we expect to unfold that way and if we are a bit of a rigid personality it causes stress. It’s best to take baby steps…have a sense of the direction you’re going in …then take action and let what’s revealed inform you of next steps. Of course this is all situational, but this is a useful guideline.
JoAnn