Rumination #3- The proof of the Pudding is in the Planning?
This is an article about “How not to bake a Pudding”. This is an article about getting the ingredients and wishing the oven made the pudding for you. Proceed with caution
A few months ago, overtaken by a gush of motivation, I decided to buy a diary. I am not very sure whether it was my last attempt to rein my wandering mind and dictate it to work or was it just mere love for fancy stationery. So, I decided to throw caution to the wind and flout Ellen Langer’s (the lady who coined and conceptualized “Illusion of control”) wisdom. Every morning I would write all the things I wish to accomplish in a day. The list had an amalgamation of personal and professional milestones set at the beginning of each day. It motivated me to finish my tasks.
Wait, here is the catch. After few days, I pondered that this exercise is great to make me uber productive but at what cost? I was either planning 100 tasks and finishing 99 of them in haste or I was barely getting past 50% of the day’s output. However, this retrospection helped little. The idea of planning seemed just as fascinating the day after as on the day my diary was delivered to me. The biggest takeaway from this entire episode is simple.
“Planning makes you visualize who you can be. Execution slaps you with the reality of who you are.”
If someone asks me what is the greatest distance on earth, my answer would be “between my plans and the execution”. We all have coated procrastination with such dark hues of vice that we failed to notice the bigger vice. Akrasia. It is when you act against your own will. In this context you plan more than your mind is ready. Simply because you celebrate the imagery of yourself in the near future (someone who has completed one hour of workout, eaten healthy, chugged 10 glasses of water and completed all assignments 10 days before deadlines and now is sitting to write the first chapter of her potential bestseller. Also, she has managed to find a window to read that classic novel everyone in her peer group is talking about). Infact, in my humble opinion, procrastination arises because we “over-plan”.
In 2020, when we had nothing but time at our disposal, we all have had those tides of being a chef, losing pounds, hitting that target on goodreads or may be something grand as starting our own venture. Let us pause and think, how many of those plans actually materialised?! Moreover, let’s think why were the plans abandoned so abruptly that we barely remember why we stopped painting all of a sudden and our subscription on Skillshare expired.
A very pertinent reason is that mostly, our plans focus on the outcome and not on the process. “I want to write a best-selling novel”- This is the outcome. You actually have no control over it. But the process looks (may be different for some people)
1. “I should read ten debut novels to understand how writers evolve.”
2. “I should attend the workshop to understand how to work with a prompt.”
3. “I Should write a page and get it reviewed by a close friend.’
Hence it is essential that we break our outcomes into a series of plans. This is a great way to have fewer but some solid few plans to work on.
Moreover, our plans are mostly a response to an external trigger and hardly a product of genuine interest. “I wish to read that book because my favourite influencer just posted a review” But are you genuinely interested in the subject or the genre? Often the plan falls flat then it becomes a tedious reading affair. Enough about books. Let’s take another example. “I will learn to play Ukulele because it looks easier than learning how to play Guitar”. But are you genuinely passionate about music? Could you channelize that interest into something that lies in the realm of your core strength and interest?
Lastly, most plans fail because they lack research. When you break your big goal into smaller ones, it’s important to research the good bad and ugly. Take an informed decision whether you would stay committed despite the uglies.
That’s right. Planning needs meticulous planning too! The planners, the To-Do Lists won’t do your tasks for you. Just like the Oven won’t bake the Pudding.
Simply put, this article is a pause and ponder exercise to understand how the last 13 days of 2021 been. Did I say New Year resolutions? How are the plans going though?
