Why Planning and Overestimating is Important in Life

Quote of the day: 

But the delights of solitude don't only consist of dreaming. Next in enjoyment, I think, comes planning. 
-Anna Neagle 

A primary characteristic of life is that it is constantly changing. The days are different, and so are our thoughts, actions and plans. And speaking of plans, what makes it such a significant aspect of our every day lives? According to Alan Lakin “Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now".

In life things can go wrong without the slightest warning. Other times things can take longer than expected and although we can't always plan for the unexpected, at least we can set goals for our expectations. However, one pitfall of planning is being over optimistic about the duration and completion of it. There is a name for that - a theory aptly titled the 'planning fallacy'. It was was first proposed in the seventies by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, two psychologists renowned for their work on psychology of judgement and decision making. The theory basically states that predicting how much time will be needed to complete a future task display an optimism bias (that bad things are less likely to happen to you), while underestimating the time needed. For example if an individual predicts three weeks to complete a task, in the end it may actually require a month or so.

The planning fallacy occurs in our daily lives. We've even seen public projects fall short of this. When creating plans there is the tendency to underestimate how long it will take. And when we are in that position, we take the easy route out -make excuses about our failures while laying the blame on other factors beyond our control. Setting out on a plan, say to run faster than the fastest man in the world -in this case Jamaica's Usain Bolt, it won't do any good to underestimate him as the opponent in the race. Because while you are planning to match or beat his best time, he is also working hard on beating his own world record. On the face of it the things we know can change, and there exists an optimistic bias when we think of the future without taking the past into consideration.

If we traveled from point A to B in an hour the day before, we are more likely to discount factors that led to that journey being made on time. We think of things like 'If traffic was heavy on that route yesterday, today should be different" or something along those lines. So in effect, we allocate less time for the journey this time around while also hinging our decision off other mental processes.

Have you ever missed the time or ability needed to finish something, perhaps underestimated how long it would take for you to get dressed for a meeting or event, or how long a personal project like writing an assignment, researching a book, painting a house, or learning a new language would take to get finished? Sound familiar? It sure does for me. I guess what I am implying is that, in life overestimating is better than underestimating. The art of planning is essential to everyday life, and businesses.

The best thing about making a plan is being realistic about how much time is really needed from start to finish. Planning fallacy can have negative effects especially if it happens more often than intended. So when you do make a plan, take everything into consideration and do grant yourself some leeway in terms of additional time you would need to complete said goal. The same goes for making promises -which in a way is a debt, always leave room for shortfalls, or rather under-promise and over-deliver.


Peace. Love. Light* 



Current Listen: Miles Davis -So What