Plan, not waste

Are you a planner or an improviser? Spending a thousand hours to perfect a single hour of actions? Winging it for a thousand hours to never look back after all?

As you could imagine from my posts before, I err on the side of a planner. However the old adage, “plan’s are worthless, planning is invaluable” is one of my core beliefs.

In practice, it is hard. My incline to know it all before starting it longs to get in the way. Yet nothing good comes out of only planning and not doing.

This is why time boxes are a super effective way to quell my inner planner. It satisfies the planner and excites the impulsive me. Accepting that the time box may not be enough for the goal I planned is important.

Time boxes meant to be used for a decision check-point. Sometimes it makes sense to continue investing time, effort and money into a problem, sometimes it is a waste.

One clear cut for me is the question, “did I cover the road from problem to solution?” Take note of the details, the question does not include “sufficiently” or any other subjective word. o my planner can’t grab on the ambivalence to keep going. The question is easily falsifiable.

Otherwise, demonstrate clear progress. Just reading a bunch of research papers, articles and notes is not progress. Distilling knowledge into new bullet points, executable actions written down is an outcome. A demonstrable outcome from a planning effort.

I do this daily, sometimes multiple times daily. Take a simple user story or a standup as an example. It is not progress to state “I did research yesterday.” Progress is to state, “I identified 3 ways to tackle this problem, wrote pros and cons to the ticket, team, let’s discuss which one to take quickly after standup. Then I can do it today.”

The same mentality I used for larger challenges, like preparing a c-suite presentation. The principles are the same. The output is considerably more complex, still in need of simple communication.

Practice in small challenges. Then grow into larger responsibilities.