Quotes about planning

The short- term plan, then, is an operative plan defining goals in writing and clearly indicating how these goals are to be carried out...

— American Management

A plan is a list of actions arranged in whatever sequence is thought likely to achieve an objective.

— John Argenti

Whatever failures I have known, whatever errors I have committed, whatever follies I have witnessed in private and public life have been the consequence of action without thought.

— Bernard M. Baruch

Most plans are just inaccurate predictions.

— Ben Bayol

We need a sense of the value of time -- that is, of the best way to divide one's time into one's various activities.

— Arnold Bennett

A first-rate Organizer is never in a hurry. He is never late. He always keeps up his sleeve a margin for the unexpected.

— Arnold Bennett

To bother about the best method of accomplishing an accidental result.

— Ambrose Bierce

The method of the enterprising is to plan with audacity and execute with vigor.

— Christian Nevell Bovee

I have never yet seen any plan which has not been mended by the observations of those who were much inferior in understanding to the person who took the lead in the business.

— Edmund Burke

You can never plan the future by the past.

— Edmund Burke

Meticulous planning will enable everything a man does to appear spontaneous.

— Mark Caine

At all times it is better to have a method.

— Mark Caine

A trend is a trend is a trend. But the question is, will it bend? Will it alter its course through some unforeseen force and come to a premature end?

— Alec Cairncross

To be prepared is half the victory.

— Miguel De Cervantes

I'm just preparing my impromptu remarks.

— Winston Churchill

It is a mistake to look too far ahead. Only one link in the chain of destiny can be handled at a time.

— Winston Churchill

There is in the act of preparing, the moment you start caring.

— Winston Churchill

Before beginning, plan carefully.

— Marcus T. Cicero

Make your mold. The best flux in the world will not make a usable shape unless you have a mold to pour it in.

— Robert Collier

A man who does not think and plan long ahead will find trouble right at his door.

— Confucius

To have his path made clear for him is the aspiration of every human being in our beclouded and tempestuous existence.

— Joseph Conrad

Magnificently unprepared for the long littleness of life.

— Frances Cornford

In order to plan your future wisely, it is necessary that you understand and appreciate your past.

— Jo Coudert

The structure will automatically provide the pattern for the action which follows.

— Donald Curtis

Always plan ahead. It wasn't raining when Noah built the ark.

— Richard C. Cushing

I am prepared for the worst, but hope for the best.

— Benjamin Disraeli

First you write down your goal; your second job is to break down your goal into a series of steps, beginning with steps which are absurdly easy.

— Fitzhugh Dodson

It's not the plan that is important, it's the planning.

— Graeme Edwards

In complex situations, we may rely too heavily on planning and forecasting and underestimate the importance of random factors in the environment. That reliance can also lead to delusions of control.

— Hillel J. Einhorn

In preparing for battle I have always found that plans are useless, but planning is indispensable.

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

Plans are nothing; planning is everything.

— Dwight D. Eisenhower

To map out a course of action and follow it to an end requires some of the same courage that a soldier needs.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Few people have any next, they live from hand to mouth without a plan, and are always at the end of their line.

— Ralph Waldo Emerson

Do not plan for ventures before finishing what's at hand.

— Euripides

Long-range planning works best in the short term

— Doug Evelyn

Some self-confronting questions: Where do I want to be at any given time? How am I going to get there? What do I have to do to get myself from where I am to where I want to be?... What's the first, small step I can take to get moving?

— George A. Ford

It is important not to ignore forecasts that are uncongenial.

— Jib Fowles

I have always thought that one man of tolerable abilities may work great changes, and accomplish great affairs among mankind, if he first forms a good plan, and, cutting off all amusements or other employments that would divert his attention, make the execution of that same plan his sole study and business.

— Benjamin Franklin

By failing to prepare, you are preparing to fail.

— Benjamin Franklin

If we can't figure something out in three weeks, we probably shouldn't bother.

— Steven Gilbert

Everything someone does on a daily basis should be traceable back to an annual or quarterly plan.

— Richard E. Griggs

Affairs that depend on many rarely succeed.

— Francesco Guicciardini

If you have accomplished all that you have planned for yourself, you have not planned enough

— Edward Everett Hale

Planning is an unnatural process; it is much more fun to do something. The nicest thing about not planning is that failure comes as a complete surprise, rather than being preceded by a period of worry and depression.

— John Harvey-Jones

For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the whole truth; to know the worst and provide for it.

— Patrick Henry

Every well built house started in the form of a definite purpose plus a definite plan in the nature of a set of blueprints.

— Napoleon Hill

Reduce your plan to writing. The moment you complete this, you will have definitely given concrete form to the intangible desire.

— Napoleon Hill

One thing at a time, all things in succession. That which grows fast withers as rapidly; and that which grows slow endures.

— Josiah Gilbert Holland

Can you think of anything more permanently elating than to know that you are on the right road at last?

— Vernon Howard

Thoroughness characterizes all successful men. Genius is the art of taking infinite pains. All great achievement has been characterized by extreme care, infinite painstaking, even to the minutest detail.

— Elbert Hubbard

He, who every morning plans the transactions of the day, and follows that plan, carries a thread that will guide him through a labyrinth of the most busy life.

— Victor Hugo

Each man should frame life so that at some future hour fact and his dreaming meet.

— Victor Hugo

Many things difficult in design prove easy in performance.

— Samuel Johnson

A good plan is like a road map: it shows the final destination and usually the best way to get there.

— H. Stanley Judd

The loftier the building the deeper the foundation must be.

— Thomas Kempis

The time to repair the roof is when the sun is shinning.

— John F. Kennedy

There is no advancement to him who stands trembling because he cannot see the end from the beginning.

— E. J. Klemme

Always have a plan, and believe in it. Nothing happens by accident.

— Chuck Knox

Failing to plan is planning to fail.

— Alan Lakein

Planning is bringing the future into the present so that you can do something about it now.

— Alan Lakein

Setting a goal is not the main thing. It is deciding how you will go about achieving it and staying with that plan.

— Tom Landry

We must ask where we are and whither we are tending.

— Abraham Lincoln

A good system shortens the road to the goal.

— Orison Swett Marden

You win not by chance, but by preparation.

— Roger Maris

Success or failure is often determined on the drawing board.

— Robert J. Mckain

Strategic planning will help you fully uncover your available options, set priorities for them, and define the methods to achieve them.

— Robert J. Mckain

For the happiest life, days should be rigorously planned, nights left open to chance.

— Mignon McLaughlin

Plan your progress carefully; hour-by hour, day-by-day, month-by-month. Organized activity and maintained enthusiasm are the wellsprings of your power.

— Paul J. Meyer

If you plan to win as I do, the game never ends.

— Stan Mikita

Organizing is what you do before you do something, so that when you do it, it is not all mixed up.

— A. A. Milne

The wise man bridges the gap by laying out the path by means of which he can get from where he is to where he wants to go.

— John Pierpont Morgan

Developing the plan is actually laying out the sequence of events that have to occur for you to achieve your goal.

— George L. Morrisey

The best business plans are straightforward documents that spell out the who, what, where, why, and how much...

— Paula Nelson

All you need is the plan, the road map, and the courage to press on to your destination.

— Earl Nightingale

Your problem is to bridge the gap which exists between where you are now and the goal you intend to reach.

— Earl Nightingale

When schemes are laid in advance, it is surprising how often the circumstances will fit in with them.

— Sir William Osler

A good plan violently executed right now is far better than a perfect plan executed next week.

— George S. Patton

A good plan today is better than a perfect plan tomorrow.

— George S. Patton

The end we aim at must be known, before the way can be made.

— Jean Paul

Plan your work for today and every day, then work your plan.

— Norman Vincent Peale

The beginning is the most important part of the work.

— Plato

One step at a time is good walking.

— Chinese Proverb

When planning for a year, plant corn. When planning for a decade, plant trees. When planning for life, train and educate people.

— Chinese Proverb

No one was ever lost on a straight road.

— Indian Proverb

When you're dying of thirst it's too late to think about digging a well.

— Japanese Proverb

With a definite, step-by-step plan -- ah, what a difference it makes! You cannot fail, because each step carries you along to the next, like a track

— Scott Reed

If you don't design your own life plan, chances are you'll fall into someone else's plan. And guess what they have planned for you? Not much.

— Jim Rohn

Never begin the day until it is finished on paper.

— Jim Rohn

It takes as much energy to wish as it does to plan.

— Eleanor Roosevelt

What do you want to achieve or avoid? The answers to this question are objectives. How will you go about achieving your desire results? The answer to this you can call strategy.

— William E. Rothschild

Always be planning something.

— John A. Schindler

We always plan too much and always think too little.

— Joseph A. Schumpeter

Somewhere there is a map of how it can be done.

— Ben Stein

Planning ahead is a measure of class. The rich and even the middle class plan for future generations, but the poor can plan ahead only a few weeks or days.

— Gloria Steinem

If you employed study, thinking, and planning time daily, you could develop and use the power that can change the course of your destiny.

— W. Clement Stone

It is a bad plan that admits of no modification.

— Publilius Syrus

It takes time to save time.

— Joe Taylor

If we had more time for discussion we should probably have made a great many more mistakes.

— Leon Trotsky

Most people are content to let perfect days happen at random rather than PLAN for them.

— Source Unknown

Planning without action is futile, action without planning is fatal

— Source Unknown