How to Be a Future Proofer

“I can see all the people you forgot to include in your decision sending you angry text messages.”

This week, my mother and I made plans to see a movie. We drove through Manhattan in suffocating, rush hour traffic. We fought our way into a parking spot. And then we decided to skip the movie and grab dinner.

As we strolled to the restaurant, my mother paused, faced me and said: “You know… this is what I like most about myself. I never know what I’m going to do from one moment to the next.”

I laughed. Then I stopped laughing because it hit me that I function in much the same way. I couldn’t tell you if it’s nature or nurture or a chemical mishap (probably all of the above), but I have always been the ready, fire, aim type. “Bias toward action,” is my marketing speak for “impulsive.”

There are benefits to being impulsive (aside from being surprised and amused by one’s self). My favorite impulsivity perk is that I learn fast because I throw myself into things. But, of course, there are also downsides — like overlooking consequences or better alternatives.

Luckily, I have had the amazingly amazing luck to have Robyn Long in my life to keep me balanced. Robyn is the designated LifeLabs Future Proofer.

A typical exchange with Robyn might go like this:

Me: I have a great idea! We should open an office in Australia tomorrow!

Robyn: Cool! Have you considered the time zone differences, culture differences, legal differences, tax implications, and travel costs?

Me: …Okay, well maybe not tomorrow.

I don’t make any major decisions without a future proofing sesh with Robyn. But the good news is that in the midst of my day-to-day decision making, I now have Robyn installed in my brain.

Want to make better decisions and help others think things through? Use this future proofing guide before you make your next plan:

Step 1: Frame it! Make it explicit that you are doing a future proofing session. Assume that the plan will work — it just needs to be examined and optimized first. Without this step, well-intentioned future proofing can come across as pessimism, skepticism, and/or criticism (all unpleasant isms to face when you’re excited about an idea).

Step 2: Question it! Next, dive into each of the questions below:

1. Clarify goals: What is your true objective? Why are you really doing this?
2. Check tradeoffs: Is it worth pursuing ? What are you giving up to do this?
3. Explore options: What are your options? Any you haven’t thought of yet?
4. Define criteria: How will you compare the options? What are the criteria?
5. Find analogous solutions: Who else has solved a similar problem? How?
6. Spot consequences: What unintended consequences might there be?
7. Anticipate problems: Where might people get confused or make mistakes?
8. Consider stakeholders: Who is impacted a week/month/year from now?
9. Pull feedback: Whose feedback should you get before moving forward?
10. Tweak it: How might you make this plan 10% better?
11. Have a Plan B: What is your backup plan if this doesn’t work?
12. Sleep on it: Have you given yourself 24 hours to marinate before starting?

These are the questions I’ve trained myself to work through a̶l̶l̶ most of the time. I’m sure I’m forgetting something (because I didn’t think to tell Robyn I was writing this blog post), but hey, at least I was impulsive enough to write it.