Perfect Planning Prevents Pathetic Performance

 I found out about this “5P rule” a couple years ago. It makes a lot of sense: How many times has your performance been below expectations simply because there was no proper planning, or because you assumed that others would do what they were supposed to do (but didn’t) and they let you down?
Planning involves thinking ahead. It requires mental effort, imagination, conjecturing, preparation and organization. It sounds hard, but this apparent hardship has a lot more to do with the habit of not planning than with its complexity, per se. The majority of us haven’t developed the habit of planning, only improvising and getting the job done.

Sometimes, we need to improvise. There’s no such thing as perfect situations and we do not always have the time or enough resources to do a proper planning, but when something really matters (and when it comes to our job, almost everything matters), it’s crucial to spend some time planning things from the beginning, so there’s no need for regrets later on.

Try starting any given job or project with planning. Start off early, don’t leave anything for the last minute. The time you think you don’t have for this will be saved later when your performance flows with excellence and without problems.

Save this rule somewhere. Stick it to the wall of your office, the notice board of your business, your refrigerator… Say it out loud to yourself every time you can — until it becomes a part of you.

Perfect Planning Prevents Pathetic Performance.

And, evidently, practice it.