Projects with planning always, and I mean always, turn out better. No other way of saying that. Include planning in your budgets, include planning in your calendar, and don’t fuss if you agency wants time to plan. Yes, you should pay them too. Even if you outsource this to AI, guess what? Crafting a prompt worthy of a publishable outcome still takes time and still means you sat, even for a nanosecond, and applied conscious thought to your idea. That, if nothing else, is worth vastly more than skipping this.
Look, as someone who’s watched more projects crash and burn than I care to count, I’ll tell you straight up – planning time isn’t just important, it’s make-or-break territory. I don’t care if you’re building the next big tech unicorn or just launching a simple website, skimping on planning is like trying to build a house without a foundation. Spoiler alert: it doesn’t end well.
My start was very clearly me being that guy who dove headfirst into every shiny new project. Speed was my game – the faster we moved, the quicker we’d see results, right? Wrong. Dead wrong. It took more face-plants than I’d like to admit before I finally resonated with the fact that planning isn’t just bureaucratic busywork.
Here’s the real deal about planning: You’ve got to budget for it (yes, with actual money) and block out real calendar time (not just the “I’ll get to it” variety). Agencies we work with have this issue constantly. Sure, you could save a few bucks upfront, but you’re essentially setting yourself up for a much more expensive cleanup later. We already know the answer. Let’s skip to that part.
And hey, I see you eyeing that new AI tool, thinking it’ll magically eliminate the need for planning. To quickly interject there, AI is like any other tool – garbage in, garbage out. In the short time we have been immersed into the AI world, we have already learned this one the hard way after initially rushing some half-baked prompts and getting back content that was about as exciting as watching paint dry.
Planning isn’t a one-and-done deal either. It’s more like a living, breathing thing that needs regular attention. The most successful entrepreneurs I know? They treat planning like eating vegetables – non-negotiable, even if it’s not always fun.
In this world of “move fast” and “Don’t worry, I will re-spawn”, I get why it’s tempting to skip the planning phase. But, for my money, that approach is short. Planning might not be sexy, but neither is short-sighted and actually robs the end result of whatever deeper thinking could have brought to the party. Also, it isn’t fun watching your project implode because you didn’t take the time to think things through.
So my advice in this arena remains firmly in make planning your non-negotiable contract item. Your future self will thank you, your team will thank you, and your project’s success rate will definitely thank you.
