Importance of planning in life

Planning is a process of setting goals, developing strategies, and outlining tasks and schedules to accomplish the goals. It is the process of deciding in detail how to do something before you actually start to do it.

Planning starts after dreams, needs, desires and ideas take birth in life. In every aspect of our lives planning play a crucial role.

In this article I will try to cover why planning is important in our life, But before I start explaining why planning is important, let’s understand what is planning?

“Let’s say your goal is to do grocerry. It may sound like a simple task, but if you break it down, there are many small tasks involved: Make a list, obtain keys, obtain wallet, start car, drive to store, find and obtain grocerry items, purchase them etc”.

A planning is basically a process which start with a goal , a plan and A plan is like a map. When following a plan, a person can see how much they have progressed towards their project goal and how far they are from their destination.

Most of the people will agree with the above mentioned definition of planning, including me . Now Let’s understand;

why is planning important in our daily life?

• Planning is important to stay focused on the goals despite the constant change of situations around us.
• One small and crazy idea can become big reality one day with proper planning for example Shaukat khanum memorial hospital in Pakistan.
• An idea is nothing more than brain waves if there is no plan to execute it.
• Planning provides speed, competitive advantages, confidence, direction, flexibility to fulfil your dream.
• Planning helps to direct and redirect future for self and others for efficient living standard. For example if in future you may need money immediately, what you will do? That’s why most of the people save money, So that they can walk towards future confidently. That’s why planning is important to survive in life.

A good plan requires certain basic things and conditions, includes duration, time management, daily, weekly and monthly actions and activities, what to do after profit, what to do in the face of loss etc. Its sheer brainstorming and It’s a lot of think tank work.

You need to remember that any plan can fail and an expert can fail in planning. Planning is not guarantee of success but it just stays you longer on the goal and reduce the burden from brain on daily basis.

Planning your life is one of the most powerful and effective ways to attain what you want.

Think about this for a second, If:

• You travel, you plan your trip.
• You are getting married, you plan your wedding.
• You throw a party, you plan the event.
• You want to make more money, you plan for it.
• You want to be happy, you will do some planning.
• You want to be healthy, you surely make some plans for this.
• You want to lose weight, you make some tasks for this.
• You want to travel and see the world, you will definetely plan for this.
• I want to have meaningful and happy relationship, then you must do some planning.

You would not dream of doing any of the above without some form of prior planning. Living a life of success filled with meaning, happiness and fulfillment is no different. Yet most people neglect to plan their lives and then get disappointed and discouraged when they do not attain what they want.

Your planning can be applied to both small and big aspects of your life. It could be that

• You want to wake up earlier.
• Trying to stop bad habits.
• Want be closer to your spouse and children.
• Want to be a nice person.
• Start your own business.
• Want to lose weight
• Get a promotion or better job.

Personally, I have used the power of planning to wake up earlier, start this blog, get fitter, lose weight, become more calm and mindful, read more books, and become happier, amongst other things. If I did not plan to accomplish those things, I doubt I would have accomplished most of them. I know this because when I have failed to carefully identify and plan a goal, I have generally failed to achieve it. Like I said, “failing to plan is akin to planning to fail”.

Planning Steps:

• The first step to planning is to clearly define your goals. Taking a few minutes to put your goals into writing will be very beneficial.
• Once you have defined your goal, it is time to brainstorm on the tasks. Ordering all of the necessary tasks into order and assigning an estimated time for completion to each goal when you begin scheduling these activities.
• Next it is useful to define the roles that you will take in fulfilling your goal as well as the roles of any others who will be assisting you. This is important to avoid redundancy or confusion.
• Once you have determined your goal, the tasks required, the key players and the tasks they will complete, it is finally time to start your scheduling. When scheduling it is important to plan a weekly schedule as well as a daily schedule. The weekly schedule is important for the overall success of the project but it is the daily planning that will help you to track your progress and determine whether or not you are on schedule.
• As the work starts, continually evaluate your performance to determine whether you are on track or need to adjust your schedule. This is where daily planning becomes so important.
• Finally once you have successfully completed your task, review your planning process to determine how successful it was. This will help you by illustrating whether or not you have achieved an optimal planning process.

In my life, I can clearly see how planning is beneficial to me. When I have a plan to follow I am able to track my progress that I am on the path to success or not.

Advantages Of Planning:

• Planning your life gives you control. If you create a plan then you get to make choices and decisions, rather than leaving things up to chance, or worse yet, letting others make decisions for you.
• It become easier for you to identify and focus on your priorities when you create a plan because we all have multiple responsibilities and priorities in our lives.
• Planning helps to make your dreams more attainable. Once a realistic plan is in place, you will be amazed at how achievable your dreams really can be.
• Having a sense of purpose can go a long way to making you happier. A plan can help you establish your purpose. Once your plan is in place and you start putting it into action, you will no longer just “exist”, you will instead “live purposefully.”
• A plan will make it easier to say “no” to things that are not as important to you. In other words, if an opportunity is not aligned with your plan, then it’s not worth your time right now and you can feel free to say “no” to it without any hesitation.
• A planned life will give you a sense of peace. You will no longer have to worry about whether or not you are making the correct decisions.
• Having a plan will make you feel more powerful. It not only gives you permission to live your life according to how you want, but it also gives you the tools to do it.
• Finally, having a plan ensures that you will have no regrets when you get to the end. Because you have made the effort to plan your life in order to achieve the goals that you want to achieve, so long as you stick to your plan you can be confident that you will not be looking back.

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