I often hear, 'What's the sense of planning?' For all the time I spend planning something, I could already have it done.' On the contrary, things rarely work out when you don't plan. Planning is nothing more than thinking before acting. If you fail to plan, in essence, you're planning to fail. Here are 5 examples:

1) Gina, Mike and their two children woke up bright and early to enjoy their first day at DisneyWorld. When they arrived at the theme park, Mike wanted to plan where they would have dinner that evening so that they could make dinner reservations. He knew they'd be tired, and longing for a nice, hot meal. Gina, on the other hand, didn't think it was necessary to make plans for dinner that early in the day. She felt it would be more fun to wait until later, so it would be a more spontaneous decision.

Later that evening, when the kids began to whine about how hungry they were, Gina and Mike discovered that all the reservations in all the available nearby restaurants were completely booked up. For over two hours, they went from restaurant to restaurant trying to get seated, unsuccessfully.

Gina and Mike began to argue. The kids were irritated. And everyone was hungry.

In short, this could have been easily avoided if Gina had agreed with Mike to take a mere five minutes of planning time to make dinner reservations when they were available--five minutes to plan versus two hours of wasted time and aggravation.

2) On Friday night, Ellen and Jane planned to meet each other the next day to catch a Saturday matinee. They both had some errands to run beforehand on Saturday morning, but agreed to meet at 12:45 for a 1:00 movie.

On Friday night, Ellen wrote up a list of the errands she had to run: drycleaner, post office and library to return some books. She determined that would take her about 45 minutes, which she padded a bit just in case there was a line at the post office or a little bit of traffic.

She knew she had to meet Jane at 1:00, so she decided to wake up at 10:00 in the morning, get showered, dressed and in the car to run her errands by 11:30, get her errands done by 12:15, and then have another 15 to 30 minutes to relax before meeting Jane for the matinee. She arrived at the movie theatre at 12:45--right on time.

On the other hand, Jane stayed up late on Friday night to watch some television, and woke up at 11:00 on Saturday morning. She rushed around doing her errands haphazardly on Saturday morning, forgetting to bring back the DVDs which were due, and arrived at the movie theatre to meet Jane at 1:10-- twenty-five minutes late for meeting Ellen, and ten minutes after the movie had started.

All of this could have been avoided if Jane had just taken ten minutes on Friday night to plan a little.

3) James and Jack both attended the same high school, and had to take a math test in the morning.

James scheduled two hours the night before to review his study material. The next day he easily aced the test ending up with an A grade.

Jack decided to go out with his friends the night before, and reviewed his math material a half hour before test time. He struggled through the test, and ended up with a C.

The next day, they both found out that anyone who scored less than a B on the test had to stay after school for further instruction. Jack wasn't happy, but this could have been easily avoided if he had just done some planning.

4) Alexandra didn't have a specific date for filing her paperwork--she did it when she was in the mood.

But one day her boss asked her to find an important contract in the filing cabinet for a client she had on the phone. Immediately, Alexandra felt queasy. She knew it was in the big pile of papers she hadn't filed for three weeks.

She frantically began going through her To File pile. After 20 minutes, her boss asked her what the hold up was. Alexandra had to admit she was having a bit of difficulty finding the contract in her pile of papers.

Her boss was furious. It took Alexandra over 45 minutes to find the paper, but even though she did, her boss told her if she couldn't get her act together within a few days, her job would be on the line.

If Alexandra had planned to file for 10 minutes at the end of each day, she would never have been in this predicament.

5) Each night before she left work, Tina regularly wrote up a To Do list for the next day. She always planned to get at least four items done, or a few more if she had some time left over at the end of the day. By doing so, Tina ended work each day feeling refreshed and satisfied by quitting time. She always felt her days were productive, and she rarely worked late.

Gary never wrote up a To Do list. He never really knew what was coming up next. He'd just work on his tasks randomly, feeling overwhelmed and unfulfilled at the end of the day. He figured he didn't have the time to plan. He had too much work. He'd end the day feeling exhausted, although he had few, if any, projects completed. So, he regularly worked late into the evening, trying to get more done.

Tina and Gary had exactly the same amount of work. But by planning, Tina made her job a whole lot easier.

Take a few minutes to think before you act. Plan your tasks, your weekly meals, your routes, your schedule and so on. A little bit of planning, can go a long way. You'll waste less time, and enjoy more productive, stress-free days.

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'Always plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.' (Richard Cushing)
 

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