WHEN AND WHERE
Give every task a slot
Plans that name a time and a place to act are followed through far more often than good intentions.
Try the plan checkWHAT THE RESEARCH SAYS
Plan tonight.
Start tomorrow.
A good agenda is more than a list of things to do.
WHEN and where
33.9 expected vs 55.5 Days to finish a thesis
- Say when
- Pad the estimate
- List it at bedtime
- Less to remember, more done
Research on planning points to three small habits: tie each task to a when and a where, expect it to take longer than you think, and write tomorrow down before you sleep. Here is the evidence, in plain English.
Plain English, with the sources linked.
THE SHORT ANSWER
Be specific, then be honest.
The plans that work say exactly when,
and allow for the time things really take.
HONEST ESTIMATES
Expect it to take longer
People reliably underestimate how long their own tasks take, even when they know past tasks overran.
See the numbers
AT BEDTIME
Write tomorrow down
In a sleep-lab study, a to-do list before bed was followed by falling asleep sooner.
How to do itA QUICK PLAN CHECK
How specific is
your plan?
Pick how you would write down a task for next week. The first three results come from a 2011 field study of reminder letters for workplace flu jabs; the last from a 2006 review of 94 tests of if-then plans.
The flu-jab figures are percentage points above or below the 33.1% baseline. They describe one study, not a promise for every task.
TRY IT TONIGHT
Four habits
for a better agenda.
Write tomorrow down tonight
Take five minutes before bed to list what you need to do tomorrow. Be specific: "email the plumber about Thursday", not "house stuff".
Give each task a when and where
Turn the top items into if-then plans: "When I sit down at 9am, I will open the report first."
Work back from the deadline
For anything bigger, start at the due date and list the steps backwards to today, so the plan shows how little slack there is.
Pad the estimate
Check how long similar jobs really took last time and plan for that, not for the version where everything goes smoothly.
TWO STUDIES WORTH KNOWING
Plans run long,
lists help you rest.
One study on how far estimates miss,
one on what an evening list does.
33.9 expected vs 55.5
Days to finish a thesis
Students predicted their honours thesis would take about 34 days. It took 55.5 on average, beyond even their pessimistic guesses of 48.6 days. Everyday jobs overran too: 5 days expected, 9.2 taken.
THE PLANNING FALLACY · 1994
≈ 9 minutes sooner
Falling asleep, sleep-lab study
57 adults aged 18 to 30 spent the night in a sleep lab. Those who wrote a to-do list before bed fell asleep about nine minutes sooner than those who listed tasks already done, and more specific lists went with faster sleep.
A LIST AT BEDTIME · 2018
Neither result means planning is pointless. They suggest writing the plan down, and making room in it for the time things really take.
PLANNING FACTS
Five things worth
putting on the list.
94 tests, one clear pattern
A 2006 meta-analysis pooled 94 independent tests of if-then plans. Saying when, where and how you will act had a medium-to-large effect on reaching goals (d = 0.65).
A time beats a date
In a 2011 workplace study, employees prompted to write down a date and a time for their flu jab were vaccinated 4.2 percentage points more often than the 33.1% baseline. A date alone added 1.5 points, not a significant gain.
Worst cases are not worst enough
In the classic thesis study, the average student finished after 55.5 days, later than their own pessimistic estimate of 48.6 days.
Plan from the deadline back
In a 2016 study of real projects, people who planned backwards from the deadline predicted their finish within about 0.2 days on average; forward planners were about 1.9 days too optimistic.
Specific lists, faster sleep
In the 2018 bedtime-writing study, people who wrote more specific to-do lists tended to fall asleep faster, measured with overnight sleep recordings.
QUICK QUESTIONS
Planning, answered.
Short answers to the questions people ask most.
Does writing a plan actually make you more likely to do something?
Often, yes, if the plan is specific. A 2006 meta-analysis of 94 tests found that plans saying when, where and how you will act had a medium-to-large effect on reaching goals (d = 0.65).
Is it enough to put the day in my diary?
A day alone may not be enough. In a 2011 workplace flu-jab study, writing down only the date gave a small gain that was not statistically significant, while writing down the date and the time raised vaccination by 4.2 percentage points.
Why do my tasks always take longer than I planned?
It is a well-documented bias called the planning fallacy. In one classic study, students expected their thesis to take about 34 days; it took about 56 on average, longer even than their own worst-case guesses of about 49 days.
Should I write my to-do list in the evening?
It may help you sleep. In a 2018 sleep-lab study at Baylor University, 57 young adults who wrote a to-do list at bedtime fell asleep about nine minutes sooner than those who wrote about tasks they had already finished.
What is backward planning?
Starting from the deadline and working back to today. In a 2016 study, people who planned this way made predictions that closely matched when they actually finished, while forward planners were about two days too optimistic.
Where the facts come from
Updated
- Implementation intentions and goal achievement: a meta-analysis (Gollwitzer and Sheeran, 2006)University of Konstanz repository
- Using implementation intentions prompts to enhance influenza vaccination rates (Milkman et al., 2011)National Bureau of Economic Research
- News release on the flu-jab planning prompt studyNational Institutes of Health
- Things always take longer than expected (the planning fallacy)Donders Institute, Radboud University
- Backward planning and predictions of task completion time (Wiese, Buehler and Griffin)Judgment and Decision Making, 2016
- Trouble falling asleep? A to-do list at bedtime (Scullin et al., 2018)Baylor University