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The Planning Fallacy ⏳

2023-06-05 · Short · Ali · recording, 0:46 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Productivity and time · mode: Explanation and tutorial · tags: Evidence-based framing

In a Short, Ali explains the planning fallacy, identified by Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in the 1970s, as our tendency to underestimate how long a task will take, and gives three fixes: use the actual times of similar past tasks, split the task into smaller chunks, and add a margin of safety.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — The planning fallacy, optimism bias and three ways to overcome it

  • ★★ The planning fallacy, first identified by the psychologists Daniel Kahneman and Amos Tversky in the 1970s, is our tendency to underestimate the time a task needs even when experience says it takes much longer, Ali says. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ Ali says the planning fallacy is often due to optimism bias, our tendency to overestimate our own ability, and can lead to missed deadlines, more stress and lower productivity. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ To overcome the planning fallacy, Ali advises recalling similar tasks you completed in the past and using their actual completion times as the reference for the current project. — 00:00:00
  • ★★ As a second step against the planning fallacy, Ali advises dividing tasks into smaller, more manageable chunks so the overall time they need can be gauged better. — 00:00:29
  • ★★ Once the time a task will take is estimated, Ali advises adding a margin of safety for unexpected delays or challenges. — 00:00:29

Threads in this video

Mentioned

Central: planning fallacy

Also: Amos Tversky · Daniel Kahneman · margin of safety · optimism bias

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