2 Common Excuses That Stop People From Planning

Did you know that over 90 percent of the people in this country do not spend anytime planning their day?  It has been said that people will spend more time planning a business trip or a family vacation, than they will plan for their lives.  Are you one of them?  If so then your first step should be to learn to leverage your time.  So the question has to be asked: If planning is the doorway to control of your life, and if it is so simple to do, then why are you ignoring it?  What keeps you from planning?  Perhaps these following excuses might help you pinpoint the problem better:

“I don't have time to plan”

Interestingly enough, not having enough time is the most common excuse given from men and women who do not take the time to plan their day and get better at time management. 

Several years ago a national survey was conducted by a man named Danial Howard, which was written up in Alec Mackenzie's book entitled, The Time Trap. The study revealed that most people do not spend a single minute planning their day and that over 70% of those people gave the following excuse for not planning: “I do not plan my day because I don't have time!”. 

Now think about that answer for a minute while you recall all of life's little distractions that we let ourselves succumb to, is it really a good excuse? Not at all!  What these people are really saying is that planning their day for better time management is not as important as watching TV, or browsing through a magazine, or taking a nap.  Obviously these people have not placed a high enough value on planning or it may be that they just do not understand the value of planning.

“I really don't need to plan”

You may be saying to yourself: “I already know what I have to do, so why waste time thinking about it?”  Of course there are always routine tasks that need to be accomplished which eat up a large portion of our day, but what about the things that are not so obvious?  What about tasks that are larger goals that relate to your deepest values?  What do you truly want out of life?  What do you want most of all out of your family setting and your career life? 

By taking the time during planning to ask yourself these important questions, you will begin to develop tasks that will surface from this thinking.  And these tasks will invariably lead to you doing more of what will take you to reaching your dreams.  Now do you really already know what you have to do?  Nope.  You must take time to think and plan for these things to happen.