plans plans plans

I love planning things out. Maybe a little too much. I've found myself spending more time planning than actually doing the work on the things I planned. It's certainly a little bit of a dangerous habit. Oddly enough, it feels so productive.

However, there is a benefit to it. Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. The 7 P's. You need to strike a balance between planning too much and not planning enough. For me, I like giving myself boxes to check. As the boxes start to get checked, it gives me this sense of satisfaction that actually motivates me to check more boxes. Once I get started on something, it's hard to stop. All about that flow state.

For other things, like music, having a repeatable plan for every song is crucial to maintaining a level of consistency that is expected at any professional level. When I was starting out, I was just releasing music willy-nilly. No real intent behind the music. No real goal. Over time, though, that actually turned into me developing a system that I can follow with every piece I work on. It gives every track a story. An intent. And a position in an all-encompassing narrative of the larger brand.

This same concept is something I've begun to apply to most areas of my life. Create repeated flows for each endeavor. This not only comes across as exceptionally professional, but takes a load off our brains. When the structure is already in place, all we have to do is fill in the blanks. That takes the energy that would be spent figuring out the order of doing things and redirects it to doing the things.

One of my favorite flows is Plan, Implement, Review, Adjust. This is a very general flow for essentially any area of life. First, you take the time to think about everything related to the subject. If the subject is some project, think about how it could go, what could go wrong, what's needed, what's blocking, action steps, etc. Document all of this. Then implement. Turn that plan into something tangible. Act on your action steps. Next, look back. What happened? How did what happened differ from what you expected to happen? How could that change next time around? And finally, make the necessary adjustments to the plan and repeat the cycle.

Above all else, the implementation is the key. If you never put the plan into action... well, you do the math.

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~Nyk