"Never Ending Plans? How Should We Make Our Plans?"

This article is Lu Canwei's 51st original piece.

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Today is the last day of the Spring Festival holiday. I wonder how many of the plans everyone made for the Spring Festival have been completed. I made four plans, and only one was completed, while another was only partially done.

If you ask everyone how to accomplish these plans, I believe they could list a hundred methods to help complete them. For example, breaking our plans down into daily tasks, prioritizing these tasks, and setting deadlines for them, among other strategies.

However, we often overlook one crucial aspect: human nature.

For instance, in my case, I planned to finish three courses I purchased during the Spring Festival, but I only completed one. While studying, I suddenly received a WeChat message on my computer, and I took a moment to reply. Just as I was about to continue studying, I realized I had been sitting for too long and got up to get some water. When it was time to eat, I watched some TV and found a video from a creator that was really interesting, so I ended up watching more. Then I returned to my work, only to be interrupted by other matters...

At this point, you might think that breaking tasks down makes sense. We often do this at work, but how many people can prove that their distinctions are correct? Or even if you believe that this is important and necessary, the process often turns out to be quite different from what you imagined.

Teacher Xiaolai mentioned in "Treat Time as a Friend" that time cannot be managed. Of course, there are exceptions to this principle, such as time management expert Luo Xiaozhu.

Since time cannot be managed, why should we make plans? Recently, I've seen many friends writing their plans for 2021, and some have meticulously broken them down, while I haven't even started planning for 2021. I can't even complete a 7-day plan, let alone muster the courage to make a plan for 2021.

Alternatively, I could just adjust the timeline of my 2020 plans, and that would become my 2021 plan.

If you were to draft a one-year plan for a software development project in most internet companies today, you would likely face severe criticism. A project that is supposed to take a month and a half could easily stretch to three months, let alone a one-year plan. In the software development process, there is a methodology called Agile development.

Unlike a large one-year project, Agile development breaks the development process into multiple small cycles, with each small development following the same process, delivering results periodically instead of waiting for a year to deliver everything at once.

In product development, you may have heard of MVP (Minimum Viable Product). The idea is to create a minimum viable version first and then iterate gradually, adding features bit by bit.

Let's take a familiar example: recently, many of you may have started noticing video accounts. When video accounts were first in beta testing, users could only post videos of 1-5 minutes, and they couldn't embed video accounts in public accounts, nor were there relationship chain recommendations—everything was machine-recommended. At that time, many people said that video accounts couldn't compete with Douyin and lacked features. Now, looking at it, it has everything it needs, including live streaming.

Now, returning to our own plans, if I were to write a plan for 2021 at this moment, what are the chances I would complete it? Of course, some friends are like superheroes, managing to complete their plans year after year. Clearly, I am not one of them, so I might as well call my 2021 plan a 2021 outline.

So why can't we manage ourselves as a project?

For example, I wanted to start writing for my public account, but after a couple of days, I stopped. Why? Because the plan lacked feasibility. Does writing one article count as completion? Does writing a hundred articles mean I haven't completed it?

After starting to write, I would remember to update only after several months. After writing for a while, I realized this approach wasn't working, so I set a goal of writing one article per month. A few months later, I adjusted it to one article per week, only to find that I couldn't keep up, and it turned into one article every two weeks.

Even when we break it down into small iterations, many issues still arise. In the field of software development, it essentially comes down to adjusting resources and requirements to achieve delivery (of course, if it were that simple, we wouldn't need to discuss it further). So you can see that I am constantly adjusting my goals, from one article per month to one article per week to one article every two weeks.

Recently, I noticed some friends doing daily updates, and I wanted to give it a try, but as you can see, it was a bit of a facepalm moment.

The previous approach resembles a small internet startup, where you do whatever you want and then adjust. In the beginning, this method isn't too problematic, but over time, you'll find that many things lack planning, leading to constant rework on the same mistakes. If we were to undertake a software project, there would be a set software development process, including technical plans, product requirements, test cases, and a series of critical milestones.

So when I was doing daily updates, I couldn't follow that same method. I needed to compress the tasks of material collection, writing, and proofreading into a few hours. If I started from this approach, I couldn't cover as much content in a single article. For instance, my previous articles were over 5000 words, but now I generally keep them around 2000 words.

If you have been following me, you may have noticed that my templates are standardized, which helps minimize my formatting time. In terms of content, I focus more on discussing a single point. For example, in this article, I didn't elaborate on time management but merely discussed planning.

Another aspect is the deadline. Since I am doing daily updates, I need to publish by midnight at the latest, which is why you can see that my posting times are generally concentrated before midnight. Why this time?

Because deadlines are the most effective tool for driving human development. In simpler terms, it means that school is starting soon, and summer homework needs to be submitted.

Alright, having said so much, how can we effectively manage our own plans? Let's summarize a bit.

Finally, I hope everyone can accomplish what they want to do in 2021.

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