It might be the engineer in me but I get really uncomfortable and even scared when people say, “Well, planning is a waste of time. Just do it.”

Yet, this seems to be a message that’s so widely accepted and taught by a lot of individuals. I think it comes from a really bad misunderstanding of what planning really means.

To me, planning is an important part of the process and it saves a lot of time, effort, energy and money.

So, if planning is important, why do so many people hate it?

There are 3 primary misconceptions about that. Here they are:

1. When people fail to put the plan into action – Seriously, is it the plan’s fault that people don’t put an excellent plan into action? Nope!

I definitely agree that It doesn’t matter how good your plan is, unless you put it into action – nothing will happen. But, do I think this means don’t plan? Not really. It means plan well and implement well.

2. When people don’t know how to plan – Alright, it takes a lot of work to make planning an effective and highly productive task (and by the way, it’s worth every bit of it).

But, the belief that planning is a waste of time is probably caused by bad planning experiences. Surely, planning will become a huge waste of time when people fail to ask the right questions, prepare well and do the right kind of research. But, I don’t see how shooting from the hip will solve the problem.

3. When people try to please everyone – This is a disastrous thing to do. It will take  a process that should take 5 days to complete and turn into a year-long project if you try to make everyone happy. If you try to come up with an idea plan that pleases everyone – first off, you probably won’t succeed (it’s called ideal for a reason).

Second, do you really think it’s possible to please everyone? Third, it will cause you a lot of stress and of course the plan won’t be put into action.

That sounds like planning is a terribly hard thing to do, doesn’t it?

Perhaps it is hard but I also believe failing to plan is the same as planning to fail.