Plans are useless, planning is not

It just started raining outside. That means I might not be able to go for my planned run after I finish writing my post for today.

I read somewhere of a British war correspondent for “The Daily News” who remarked in 1877 on the limited value of plans:

“Plans are worthless when the fighting is once begun, and all depends on the inspiration of the moment.”

But living your life deliberately requires at least some amount of planning though.

I don’t get up at 5.30 in the mornings by accident. I don’t publish an article every day because my fingers slip on the keyboard. And I’ve certainly never run for half an hour unintentionally.

So are plans truly worthless? Of course not! Yes, sometimes the enemy will interfere with your battle plans by doing something unexpected. Of course reality won’t line up exactly with your plans. The paradox is that although plans are often useless, planning rarely is.

Eisenhower explained it well:

“In an emergency the first thing is to take all the plans off the top shelf and throw them out the window. But if you haven’t been planning you can’t start to work, at least not intelligently.”

Lets make it practical. Yes it’s raining, but I got up early because I planned to run. Now I can adjust intelligently and do strength training in my garage instead.