Why do we bother planning?
P lans often fall apart. Last night, I had a committee meeting at church. I’m the chairman of the committee, so I tried to have all my ducks in row. I sent out an agenda before the meeting. I printed out copies of the biggest thing we were going to discuss. I thought I was ready. We had three items of business—or so I thought. We made it through the first two and someone brought up something that I didn’t know anything about. It was appropriate to handle it, but it took me by surprise. Then we got to the “big” item. I had been thinking about the best way to handle it, but the strangest thing happened. The need to handle that piece of business vanished. The meeting went much differently than I expected. So why do we bother making plans when they fall apart on us anyway? While it may feel like we never accomplish what we planned, we almost never have a situation in which nothing we planned is accomplished. Plans give us a place to start. Plans give us a goal to reach. It’s like plannin...