Quotes About Planning

I am a big outliner. For my adult book, 'The Visibles,' I did not outline, and it took me two years to write because I just didn't outline, and I had no path.

There's an outline for each of the books that I adhere to pretty closely, but I'm not averse to taking it in a new direction, as long as I can get it back to where I need it to go.

If you do outline, you have to be aware of the problems that that kind of thing can cause.

I made 'St. Nick' on a 30-page outline. 'Aint' Them Bodies Saints' was a full-bodied script, but it still had a lot of room for improvisation. There were scenes that weren't there on the page - just a sentence saying something happens. I was like, 'We'll figure this out when we shoot it.'

I don't outline or plan ahead when I write a novel. The more I know about what's going to happen, the less interesting it is to me; and if it's less interesting for me, it will be that way for the reader.

I'm a great believer in outlines.

Don't write outlines; I hate outlines.

I make extensive outlines before I write a book. I usually know what will happen. I know the characters, and I know what they are about.

I don't want to outlive my money.

People just haven't saved enough for retirement. And they're going to outlive their money.

No matter how much I plan the overall arc of the character, you get there day one on the film and you shooting certain scenes first, and it goes completely different to anything you ever thought of, and then it's done.

Goals help you overcome short-term problems.

Look several months ahead, see where the obstacles lie, and figure out ways to overcome them.

Don't be hungry when you go shopping, but don't overeat, either.

In Chile, they had penas, where the community would come together to sing and plan how they were going to overthrow the government. There's a real hopefulness in that community style of organizing.

when they investigated the productivity of 24 projects for which no estimates were prepared at all. These projects far outperformed all the others

Does the overall effort have both a schedule and a goal, where the schedule and the goal are markedly different? If the schedule is the goal, there is no risk management at work. The earliest date by which the work could conceivably be done makes an excellent goal but an awful schedule.

The missed schedule indicts the planners, not the workers. Even if the workers are utterly incompetent, a plan that takes careful note of their inadequacies can help to minimize the damage. A plan that takes no account of realities is not just useless but dangerous.

Coloured marble, pompous avenues, urban planning: what were these, if not the prerogatives of kings? No one, in a free republic, could be permitted such sinister grandstanding. This was why, in the last feverish decade before the crossing of the Rubicon, the sudden appearance in Rome of a rash of grandiose monuments had served as portents of the Republic's ruin.

Every evening, write down the six most important things that you must do the next day. Then while you sleep your subconscious will work on the best ways for you to accomplish them. Your next day will go much more smoothly.

Amateurs think about tactics, but professionals think about logistics.

All great enterprises are about logistics. Not genius or inspiration or flights of imagination, skill or cunning, but logistics.

Saddle your dreams before you ride them.

Metaphors construct, or frame, views of 'reality', which can be used in policy-making or planning. They highlight structural characteristics of the world. It is dangerous if those who frame metaphors believe there is only one reality. But if metaphors are recognised as creative constructs, they can have immense value.