Planning Fallacy 📅

🧠 Psych - 22 / 100

Hey,

Let’s discuss about Planning Fallacy 📅 in today’s email.

What is it?

It can be defined as our tendency to underestimate the time that we will take to accomplish an upcoming task, even though we are fully aware that similar tasks have taken longer in the past.

Example -

Remember that quick side business idea you had that you wanted to finish by the weekend? What happened to it? :)

Where does it occur?

This phenomenon can be seen happening in the lives of entrepreneurs, indie makers, students, college graduates, job professionals. Every one of us does it.

Wherever you require to “plan” something, you are most probably going to underestimate the time by which you might not achieve what you’ve planned.

Why do I need to know?

It affects yours planning methodology which can lead you to making decisions which doesn’t actually cover the realistic factors involved.

You may think you have all the time to achieve your end goal but there are various factors present in between the path which can hamper the progress.

Takeaways:-

1. Before planning, see how you have done your previous “planned” tasks and how long have they taken. Calculate an average based on that and go from there.

2. Make a checklist of tasks which you will have to do each day to reach your goal.

References & Studies:-

1. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0065260110430014

2. https://thedecisionlab.com/biases/planning-fallacy/

3. http://psychology.iresearchnet.com/social-psychology/decision-making/planning-fallacy/

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