If-Then Planning: A To-Do List Alternative

As many appraisers are solo-professionals we have to use and plan our time in order to maximize our potential.  Some appraisers use calendars and reminders, such as To-Do list.  Many are electronic and connected with our smartphones.

I saw this interesting article in the Wall  Street Journal that said To-Do lists may help you organize, but they to not necessarily help you accomplish things.  They did offer an interesting alternative, what is called if then planning.  It takes the To-Do list a step further, for example if it is 3:00 pm, then I will work on assignment X.  A Psycology Today article "states you are two to three times more likely to succeed if you use an if-then plan than if you don't. In one study, 91 percent of people who used an if-then plan stuck to an exercise program, versus 39 percent of non-planners. Peter Gollwitzer, the NYU psychologist who first articulated the power of if-then planning, recently reviewed results from 94 studies that used the technique and found significantly higher success rates for just about every goal you can think of, from using public transportation more frequently to avoiding stereotypical and prejudicial thoughts."

Perhaps with If-Then planning we can be a bit more organized, and also accomplish a few additional tasks. Might be something to try out for the New Year.

The WSJ reports

To-do lists seem like a good idea, but they merely catalog tasks–and cannot help you accomplish them.

If all you do is make lists of the projects you need to finish, odds are good that they will remain unfinished far longer than you’d like.

Decades of research on goal pursuit shows that when it comes to execution, there are two major pitfalls that keep us from doing the things we intend to do.

First, we don’t get specific enough about what exactly needs to happen – the various actions we must take to reach our goals.  If, for example, your goal is to make a good impression on your boss, you need to break that down into component actions, such as arranging a weekly meeting or turning in reports on time. To-do lists be helpful on this end, so long as they contain specific actions rather than vague goals.

But the second problem – which To-do lists don’t solve – is that we miss opportunities to take action.  Did you really have no time to work on that assignment today?  No chance at any point to return that phone call? Of course you had time, but you were probably preoccupied with something else, or simply forgot about it until it was too late – something busy people routinely do.  Achieving any goal means grabbing hold of these opportunities before they slip through your fingers.

The good news is that there is a solution to this second pitfall:  It’s called if-then planning.

The trick is to not only decide what you need to do, but to also decide when and where you will do it, in advance.  The general format of an if-then plan looks like this:

If (or When) ___________ occurs, then I will ________________.

When it’s 3 p.m. today, then I’ll stop whatever I’m doing and work on that project.

If it’s Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, then I’ll go to the gym before work.

If it’s Tuesday morning, then I will check in with all my direct reports.

Source: The Wall Street Journal and Psychology Today from a 2011 article.