Planning is a Skill

The main advantage of the human being over other animals, an extension of its higher intelligence, is its ability to think into the future and to plan several steps ahead beyond the present. Through this, we are able to allocate and conserve resources and then use these resources to fold the present into the future. However, planning is one of those skills that is easy to learn, even instinctive, but takes great effort to master.

When one plans, one essentially seeks to turn an imagined ideal into reality. One imagines a future one desires, and then adopts a series of steps to turn the imagined ideal into the actual. This is planning at its most basic.

However, anyone with enough experience would quickly note that plans often turn awry. When this happens often enough, one could get frustrated and simply opt to stop planning in the future. Why bother? It only serves to raise expectations, which usually are not fulfilled.

When this happens, it is not a failure on the idea of planning itself, but on the planner.

Planning must never be too constricted. One cannot plan for every single step along the way, for life is by nature chaotic, unpredictable, and any plan that predicates itself on a perfectly linear progression dooms itself from the beginning.

As humans, we depend on concepts to relate to the world. Depending on our personal tendencies, we could over or under estimate certain factors in a situation; this contributes to flawed reasoning. If plans were made to strictly follow this line of reasoning, then that plan would immediately be flawed, it being constructed from a crooked foundation.

The goal is all that matters. The plan works in service of the goal, not the other way around. One can still plan step-by-step, as long as the focus on the ideal is maintained, and the steps must not depend on a linear progression.

Instead, one must make flexible plans. The desired goal, the ideal, must always be in focus, not the steps to be taken - not the plan itself. It is a common mistake to focus on following the plan to the letter, even when an opportunity presents itself that, although outside of the plan, allows the planner to bypass certain steps in pursuit of the goal.

In other words, the planner, and the plan as an extension, must be able to adapt to changing circumstances and choose a different step along the way. Planning used in this way allows for precision and effectiveness while giving it a proper grounding in reality.