Time and time again

TIME MANAGEMENT: “Every Saturday morning, while my husband is eating his cereal, I ambush him with the list of chores and errands I’ve been making all week,” writes careers expert Heidi Grant in her blog on FastCompany.com. Every single time, the couple end up arguing.

The author of Succeed: How We Can Reach Our Goals says her husband always wants to have fun first and do the chores later. “He has an unshakeable belief that any task, no matter how complex, can be completed in about 15 minutes. He is mostly wrong.” Grant's husband is not alone in his failure to estimate how much time a job really takes. In fact, says his wife, psychologists have given the problem a name: “planning fallacy”.

People suffering from planning fallacy fool themselves into believing that tasks are easier than they really are. They do this in several ways. First, they fail to consider past experiences when planning. “When my husband tells me it will take 15 minutes to vacuum the carpets, he is ignoring the fact that it took him an hour to do it last time,” explains Grant.

Bad planners forget that a task consists of a number of steps. 

Second, they plan based on a “best-case” scenario. So they think they can run to the shops to buy a new coffee machine and be back home in 15 minutes. But they could be held up in traffic, or the item could be out of stock, or there might be long queues at the cashier.

Finally, bad planners don’t remember that one task can consist of a number of steps, each of which needs time. So, if they decide to paint a room, they may see themselves on a ladder with a roller in hand. But they forget that the furniture must be moved or covered, that holes in the wall must be filled, and that all the fixtures and window frames must be taped over.

Some people fall into the planning fallacy trap more than others. Studies show that people in positions of power are particularly poor planners. “Feeling powerful tends to focus us on what we want, and we ignore the potential obstacles that stand in our way,” says Grant.

So how can you manage your time better? There are three steps, according to Grant. Consider how long the task has taken you in the past; identify ways in which things might not go as planned, and work out all the steps needed to do the job, including how much time each step may take. "Otherwise," says Grant, "you may fall victim to the everything-takes-15-minutes kind of optimism that can lead to disaster.”