Why do you often struggle with accomplishing tasks or goals according to your plan? Have you ever thought about that? We all struggle with it one way or another. There is even this famous saying based on a verse from the bible that goes something like this: ‘Humans may make plans but God has the last word’. This is not entirely inaccurate but it fails to accurately and appropriately attribute reasons why our plans fail to the actual person responsible; which is the person making the plan. You might have had this happen to you in various different scenarios. You might have planned to study for an exam, you might have planned to finish your research paper at a particular time, there could be a team project at the office that you are a part of, you might have planned to open a business or get your startup off the ground at a certain date or you might have planned a road trip and planned to get to your destination at a certain date or time. All of our plans are different but what they have in common is the timeline aspect. Haven’t you wanted to finish something at some time before? Well then, more often than not, why do you always end up not finishing what you have planned at the time you have planned it?
The answer is not quite simple but can be summarized under one concept and lies in the very wiring of our brains—the planning fallacy—and it affects us all. The planning fallacy describes our tendency to underestimate the amount of time it will take to complete a task, as well as the costs and risks associated with that task—even if it contradicts our experiences. The term planning fallacy was introduced in 1977 by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky, psychologists who tried to explain this tendency in people. According to them, it is “A tendency to underestimate the time it will take to complete a project while knowing that similar projects have typically taken longer in the past. So it’s a combination of optimistic prediction about a particular case in the face of more general knowledge that would suggest otherwise.” Simply put, the planning fallacy refers to a prediction phenomenon and unrealistic optimism in estimating the time we need to complete future tasks.
If our previous experiences should guide us in our decision-making, why do we always succumb to the planning fallacy bias? There are several reasons why people continue to be overconfident in their predictions (even if they get it wrong every single time), such as:
- The optimism bias,
- The present bias,
- Motivation, and
- Social pressure.
From a behavioral standpoint, the planning fallacy affects two essential facets of human behavior: Critical thinking, and decision-making processes. When these two abilities are compromised, we become less logical and less willing to approach the problem from many angles since we are less able to predict outcomes and make accurate assumptions. The likelihood of negative effects is further increased by the fact that critical thinking and decision-making are crucial components of our organizational and time management abilities. Every one of us may add a plethora of other, more specific reasons to the list above, such as our incapacity to divide work into smaller parts. That primarily depends on the tasks themselves and our feelings towards finishing them.
Think about to a time when you were making a plan for any of the examples mentioned above or any of your own personal examples. How were you feeling as you were formulating the plan? Do you remember the time when you were first coming up with the idea and it felt fresh? Were you optimistic as to how the plan would actually turn out? There is no doubt that you had a positive outlook on your plan and its accomplishment. Nobody makes a plan while simultaneously feeling pessimistic about that plan. It just doesn’t work that way. This phenomenon is known as optimism bias.
Our brains are hardwired with optimism bias, which is simply the propensity to constantly see the bright side of things. As cognitive researcher Tali Sharot describes in her book The Optimism Bias: A Tour of the Irrationally Positive Brain, people all over the world tend to have this delusion, therefore being overly optimistic is not a cultural trait. Another relevant key point from the same book is that our view of the world frequently depends on having optimistic expectations for the result, which is not a bad thing. All we can do is remember that sometimes the results won’t be what we had hoped for and think about the other possibilities. Remarkably, another study on optimism bias notes that it also affects other animals, like rats and birds, suggesting that optimism bias is a deeply ingrained evolutionary phenomenon.
Those experiencing depression, on the other hand, exhibit a marked lack of optimism. Pessimism is the primary symptom in a number of depression disorders, according to The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. This means that being optimistic is actually healthy and not something to be frowned upon. Optimism is a healthy brain mechanism that helps us be happier and more confident to tackle challenges that life throws at us.
Ok, so we are optimistic as we are formulating our plans; if that is not necessarily a bad thing, how does it feed into our planning fallacy issue? Once again, go back to the time you were establishing your plan and think about how you were feeling optimistic. Your optimism would have led you to believe that you could make your plan happen in a shorter timeline and with a smaller set of resources. It feels good to actually imagine or assume the plan coming to fruition under those circumstances—but it only feels good in the present. For instance, instead of taking a week to study for a final (as you have done before); it feels good to plan to study it in three days. Just making the plan by itself feels good and feels rewarding. Again, you are only thinking of your present self in this scenario. This feeling is known as the present bias. The relationship between our past, present, and future self often comes down to seeking an immediate reward — beneficial for the present self — even if we know that the future self will regret the decision. In the context of the planning fallacy, the present bias makes it difficult to be objective about future events. In order to justify satisfying our present self, we’ll create an ideal scenario for completing the task, not accounting for any obstacles or interruptions. Or, in the words of one of our favorite cartoon character:
Let’s go back again to the time you were setting up your plan. We have already covered how you were most likely optimistic, which led you to only focus on gratifying your present self (in that moment). Now think about just how motivated you were as you were establishing your plan. Were you excited, happy, confident? Of course, you were. If you are optimistic and you feel happy because you just made a plan; there is no way your motivation level at that moment would be low. There are 2 types of motivation — intrinsic and extrinsic — and they both play a role in the existence of the planning fallacy. Intrinsic motivation is what drives us internally, the cases when our own satisfaction is the reward itself. On the other hand, extrinsic motivation revolves around external rewarding factors, such as money, praise, etc.
The connection with the planning fallacy is quite obvious here — low motivation can cripple us from taking action, but we can’t really anticipate how motivated we’ll feel in the future. Furthermore, we are normally most motivated in the beginning while the work or project is still vague. At such point, we are conscious of the advantages but are yet blind to difficulties such as the potential roadblocks, the detrimental effects of procrastination, and the realization of tasks we find unpleasant. As a result, we’re developing a plan or timetable under the mistaken assumption that our motivation levels would stay that high, which is regrettably not always the case.
You are inherently a social creature—your life is shaped by social norms, as well as your relationships and interactions with others. You grew up in families, you work in teams, and you develop friendships and romantic relationships. So it is only natural that the people around you influence your behavior. Maybe you wanted to please your boss or teammates by finishing a task in a shorter timeline or using fewer resources. Maybe you wanted to give more time for family errands in addition to studying for your final. Maybe you wanted to uphold your reputation amongst your peers, others, or even for yourself as someone who can get it done. Whatever your scenario may be, that influence can turn into pressure to fit in and conform to a specific standard. This type of influence or pressure is known as social pressure. It’s only natural that we all want to make a good impression on other people, right? That’s where the social pressure kicks in, along with the tendency to be overly optimistic and perhaps too confident in our future selves.
The planning fallacy, deeply rooted in the wiring of our brains, affects us all in various aspects of our lives. From underestimating the time needed for tasks to the costs and risks associated, this cognitive bias leads us to make decisions based on unrealistic optimism and biased predictions. Despite our innate tendencies towards optimism and motivation, acknowledging and understanding the planning fallacy can help us approach our plans and goals with more realism and foresight, ultimately improving our decision-making and outcomes.