How to escape the planning fallacy

“Las cosas de palacio van despacio.”

The Airbnb host of the apartment where I stayed in Seville told me this Spanish saying. She explained what it meant.

Every significant undertaking (like building a palace) takes time. Good things come to those who wait.

When you see Seville’s Real Alcazar or the Nasrid Palaces of the Alhambra, you’ll get to understand this saying.

It’s the equivalent of another saying: “Rome wasn't built in a day.”

It serves as a good reminder, too.

I remember the days back in university when I wished that time would go fast.

I wanted to rush my studies so that I could work soon.

When I started working, I wanted to rush to earn more money to retire soon.

But things like that and more are not meant to be rushed.

Building a business, finishing your studies, shaping your career, or working on your dreams—everything takes time.

***

As an auditor, I've faced many busy seasons when big goals like completing the audit can make accountants and auditors rush things.

I used to get frustrated when we rushed to meet a deadline. In times like this, the purpose behind the work becomes lost. When you rush, you miss the essential details that could have impacted your audit.

“But…if we only have limited time, what else can I do but rush through things?” an inexperienced auditor might ask.

The auditor has a point. That leads me to another concept that we fall victim to or make others fall victim to.

Do you know the planning fallacy? It's underestimating the time it takes to complete a particular task.

For example, as a more experienced person, have you ever heard yourself saying?

“I think you can complete this in two hours.”

Or

“I think we can do this in a week.”

We tend to make these assumptions while ignoring other factors, like the skillset of the person doing the job, the client’s response time, or any other unforeseen factors like illness, unplanned leaves of absence, and other external stressors from yours or the other person’s life.

We estimate based on how fast it took us to do the same task before.

We tend to become overly optimistic and highly confident of our abilities that we forget these things:

• We have different levels of experience, skillsets, and technical expertise.

• Not all people find it easy to separate the boundaries of personal life from work.

• We don't have the same tolerance level for hard work.

Now, how do you combat this planning fallacy?

Some of these techniques might already be common sense, but not all people might know.

Or they don’t do it well.

I hope you belong in the category of people already doing it. In that case, you can stop reading here.

But if not, read on.

The key word is anticipation.

Here are some ways you can practice anticipation if you already have previous experience.

• Identify your clients and projects in the upcoming busy season.

• Talk to previous team members who worked on the project to understand their pain points and challenges.

• Set up kick-off calls, define the timelines, and agree with all parties involved.

• Know the strengths and gaps of the people you’ll work with. You can leverage their strengths. If not, create some buffer time for coaching and training.

If you’re a newbie starting from scratch, you'll find it a little harder to anticipate.

You might have to talk to more experienced people. Or read something relevant to what you want to accomplish.

You’ll have to think outside the box.

But as with many things, anticipation is a skill you can hone with experience.

These are just examples, and you might have better ways to anticipate. If you do, feel free to share them, too.

Anticipation comes with proactiveness. Be proactive instead of reactive. This mindset will help you in the long run and will help you navigate all the changes around you.

Some open questions to reflect on:

• Have you ever had a time when you planned everything, but your plan didn’t work out in the end?

• How would you do it differently if given the chance to do it again?

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