We Can’t Stop Planning (Even When We Should)

We are pathological planners.
We should have a word for that. Something like planopathia anticipationis maybe.
We plan because of incentives and psychological urges.

We plan because it feels professional and responsible.
Anticipating future problems signals expertise.
Unpreparedness signals incompetence.

We plan because we can’t resist adding to the list.
We hoard ideas, good and bad, scared we might forget.
We order, reorder, discuss, schedule and align.
We love tending to those little lists of ours.

We plan because we fear uncertainty.
What if…? What if…? What if…?
We need the sense of control it provides.

Planning makes sense when your survival depends on it
Planning is an evolutionary moat that we climbed.
When bad decisions can lead to an irreversible death, accurate anticipation is highly valuable.
And over-planning is preferable to under-planning.

But where change is cheap,
When you can revert past decisions at no cost,
When you can switch directions instantly,
Anticipation is not only a waste of time,
Anticipation is also a waste of optionality.

Cost of change is dropping and we did not notice
Or rather our hardwired brain has a hard time adjusting.
Meaning we miss-allocate our energy where cost of change used to be high,
Instead of where it remains relatively higher.

AI scrambles the Cost of change landscape.
Deliberately avoiding planning,
Resisting the incentives to anticipate,
Are relevant strategies until the dust settles.