Why Do I Always Overcommit Myself?

There have been 74 final completion dates since then. There's still one now.

The temple is still being built.

It already has wifi, but it's still not completely finished.

Since then, millions of people have learned this lesson.

Then the next day they replanned their annual strategy in an Excel sheet and wrote again: "finished by the end of July."

This is the planning fallacy. The planning error. The brain's bizarre tendency to always imagine the future as sterile, friendly, and unusually cooperative – in contrast to the current reality, which is just missing a connecting flight at the airport.

The planning fallacy is when:

• we want to make a presentation in 30 minutes,
• we estimate the launch at three weeks,
• we want to switch the company system "before Christmas,"
• we imagine the house renovation as "done by the end of spring," while the neighbor has been celebrating Christmas with cement bags for the fifth year.

What happens in these cases?

Nothing extraordinary.

We simply miscalculate chaos.

Our brain – with completely good intentions – forgets to factor in the inevitable:

• that in the middle of every project, no one will be available,
• that someone will rewrite the brief,
• that the "minor modification" is actually a complete redesign,
• that there will be a summer break, a flu wave, a week when everyone is on vacation at the same time,
• or simply: that we won't feel like it.

Because – and we rarely add this – humans are not an Excel sheet, but a tired mammal trying to survive Monday.

And yet, why do we believe it again and again?

Because we want to believe in the good version.

The fast one.

The smooth one.

The "everyone is motivated and pulling in the same direction" one.

Even though we haven't seen anything like this in the past six years.

The reality, however, is that every project is a Gaudí cathedral: it starts with faith, moves with momentum, then reality slowly walks in, takes off its shoes, and stays there for a few decades.

And nobody meant any harm.

We just didn't think that the future won't be calmer than the present.

In fact, it's usually even more chaotic.

So what now?

Plan as if you're working with real people, not Google Calendar.

People who are tired, sick, between two projects, or trying to navigate between three company values.

Plan shamelessly pessimistically.

Plan for delays, setbacks, postponements, restarts.

Because there will be.

And above all, don't demoralize yourself and your team by being surprised that the topic we haven't tackled for five years has come up again. Of course it came up. And we'll do it in the fifth year, there's nothing wrong with that.

Turn your impatience into something positive and use it to give yourself a push and do something that has also stayed on your to-do list, since due to the planning fallacy, you always overcommit yourself too.

For example, finally go to those screening tests.