Words from the Hai Druid

Planning and Basic Logic Processes

December 20, 2016

Planning is essential in the day to day lives of human animals, but the logic process behind the planning is one of the key factors in insuring your success. If you do a quick search on the internet you will find 356 quotes on planning and 297 quotes on plans; many of these quotes are on both lists. They are of course quotes from famous people in society and history, but I prefer the ones I learned over the years that speak of planning. Prior planning prevents poor performance. An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. What can go wrong, will go wrong. The first casualty of war is the plan. The best laid plans of mice and men often go awry. These are just a few that come to mind. Constructing a plan, though, has its flaws. For example, we have the only child that thinks it can get away with something a friend who has multiple siblings got away with because nobody can see them do it. As a parent we shake our heads since it is obvious; when nobody else is around, it boils down to just one suspect. Of course there are several adults I have met that have never achieved realization of that fact to this day, many of which have found their way to our overcrowded corrections system. Then there are those that do not take contingencies into their plans. I saw a meme on LinkedIn which shows CEO Elizabeth Holmes being quoted with, "The minute you have a back-up plan, you've admitted you're not going to succeed." Boy did that get trashed by numerous people quickly. An attitude like that may work once, maybe twice if you are really lucky, but is a gourmet recipe for failure. So how do we do something in a logical fashion? It can be best put as this. Hope for the best, prepare for the worse, and you will land somewhere in the middle; which basically means we think of the best case scenario for what we wish to happen. Then we think of the worse case scenario. Afterwards we start weighing in the different factors that we know about whatever we are trying to plan, taking into account everything we know about who, what, when, where, how and why, to come up with our basic plan. While we do this process, we can also make the contingencies based upon the scenarios that we are going through. This is a basic logical process of formulating a plan. This is usually explained by the 7 steps to effective decision making which are: identify the decision; gather information; identify alternatives; weigh the evidence; choose among the alternatives; take action, and then review your decision. Now some people have problems doing this for several reasons. Being a total optimist or pessimist would really cause problems in your decision making process. Those people with over inflated egos also can have trouble with this, and if they are part of your plan, watch out. For those that boast the most, do the least. We all know those narcissists that think they are a total gift to the world and have no basis for that belief whatsoever. Then there are those habitual liars, or as most common people call them, "bullshitters," who usually come under the "do the least" category. Yes, we have to take into account the caliber of those that will be involved with the plan. Education level, along with common sense of the individuals involved, comes into play. We must base our scenarios on the observations we have made in life; thus being able to watch, look, and listen are key factors. We must make educated choices and judgments, which I have already written about. While the combat/workout slogan of "never surrender, never quit" has its merits for some, others will not be able to keep going. Be patient when you develop your plans in life. While, yes, snap decisions have to be made from time to time, our ability to use logic and planning will enable us to make those snap decisions in the most beneficial manner, because we have trained our human brain to calculate in the best possible manner.

So says the Hai Druid.