Introduction to
Planning.

What is planning and why you need to
plan?
• Planning is one of the most important project
management and time management techniques.
Planning is preparing a sequence of action steps to
achieve some specific goal. If you do it effectively, you
can reduce much the necessary time and effort of
achieving the goal.
• A plan is like a map. When following a plan, you can
always see how much you have progressed towards
your project goal and how far you are from your
destination. Knowing where you are is essential for
making good decisions on where to go or what to do
next.

• One more reason why you need planning is gain
the 80/20 rule. It is well established that for
unstructured activities 80 per cent of the effort
gives less than 20 percent of the valuable
outcome. You either spend much time on
deciding what to do next, or you are taking many
unnecessary, unfocussed, and inefficient steps
towards your goal.
• Planning is also crucial for meeting your needs
during each with your time, money, or other
resources. With careful planning you often can
see if at some point you are likely to face a
problem. It is much easier to adjust your plsn to
avoid or smoother a coming crisis, rather than to
deal with the crisis when it comes unexpected.

How to write an action plan?
• When writing an action plan to achieve a
particular goal or outcome, you can get much
help from the following steps.
• Clarify your goal. Can you get a visual picture
of the expected outcome? How can you see if
you have reached your destination? What
does make your goal measurable? What
constraints do you have, like the limits on
time, money, or other resources.

• Write a list of actions. Write down all actions you
may need to take to achieve your goal. At this
step focus on generating and writing as many
different options and ideas as possible. Take a
sheet of paper and write more and more ideas,
just as they come to your mind. While you are
doing this, try not to judge or analyze.
• Analyze, prioritize, and prune. Look at your list
of actions. What are the absolutely necessary and
effective steps to achieve your goal? Mark them
somehow. After that, what action items can be
dropped from in the plan without significant
consequences for the outcome. Cross them out.

• Organize your list into a plan. Decide on the
order of your action steps. Start from looking at
your marked key actions. For each action, what
other steps should be completed before that
action? Rearrange your actions and ideas into a
sequence of ordered action steps. Finally, look at
your plan once again. Are there any ways to
simplify it even more?
• Monitor the execution of your plan and review
the plan regularly. How much have you
progressed towards your goal by now? What new
information you have got? Use this information
to further adjust and optimize your plan.

Using a goal setting form or worksheet
• A goal setting form or worksheet has certain
advantages. They may be a convenient
learning tool when making first goal setting
steps, like in high school lessons. Goal setting
forms or worksheets can also be helpful if you
feel they stimulate you to actually sit and
write your goals. They are also easy if you use
them for a one time goal setting exercise, just
to fill them out and forget.

• After you learn basic goal setting principles and
acquire some goal writing skills, you can do even
better with just a plain sheet of paper. At least if you
don't have many goals to manage.
• As soon as you grow more serious about your goals
and objectives, and it is not just a one time exercise, a
simple paper system or just a goal setting form will
slow you down.
• In particular, while it is important to stick to your goals,
you need significant flexibility in your objectives and
activities. Your objectives are important part of goal
planning process, as they serve your goals and connect
them to changing circumstances. Even if the direction
of your goals does not change, time after time you feel
the need to clarify their formulation.

• With a paper system it is easy to become
reluctant to sharpen your goals or readjust
your objectives to new facts and experiences.
It is just too much rewriting work. Of course,
doing that rewriting work may help to keep
your goal setting system alive, but will be
taking more of your time. It is also quite
difficult to have a visible hierarchy of your
goals, objectives, and activities. In any case,
with a goal setting form or worksheet, or just
plain paper, you serve your goal writing
system rather than the system serves you.

• With a paper system it is easy to become
reluctant to sharpen your goals or readjust
your objectives to new facts and experiences.
It is just too much rewriting work. Of course,
doing that rewriting work may help to keep
your goal setting system alive, but will be
taking more of your time. It is also quite
difficult to have a visible hierarchy of your
goals, objectives, and activities. In any case,
with a goal setting form or worksheet, or just
plain paper, you serve your goal writing
system rather than the system serves you.