Need to Make a Plan? Try Starting at the End.

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Preparing for a job interview? Studying for a big exam? Want to establish a healthier diet and exercise habits? Have something important on your to-do list but don’t know how to make it happen?

Research suggests a plan is a good place to begin. Plans can help you be more realistic about how long a task will take, increase your motivation, and boost your self-control.

But not all plans are created equal. Park and colleagues found that when the task is close at hand, like an upcoming job interview or an exam, you may fare better if you plan backward.

Across five different studies, the researchers had participants identify a goal they needed to achieve (most often these were students planning for courses and exams). The participants were then randomly assigned to make a plan to achieve that goal either by (1) starting in the present moment and working forwards or (2) starting at the end and working their way backward. So if they had an exam in a week, the forward-planning group would be instructed to list everything they needed to do between that moment and the exam. The backward-planning group would be instructed to begin with the final moments before their exam and work their way backwards to the present moment. In some of the studies, the researchers just asked the participants at the end how motivated they were to achieve their goal. In other studies, they actually tracked the participants over time and measured their success (such as their exam grade).

Across all the studies, they found consistent evidence that the participants who used backward planning—visualizing the final task and then working their way backward to the present moment—were more motivated to achieve their goals, felt less time pressure, and were actually more successful.

How does it work? Backward planning appears to give people more clarity about the actual steps necessary to achieve their goal, as well as help them see potential obstacles in their path.

Is backward-planning always better? The researchers found that backward planning was most beneficial when goals were more complex. So backward planning might help more than forward planning when trying to figure out something complicated like how to have a healthier lifestyle, but not matter much when you’re trying to figure out something straightforward like how to complete a list of errands for that day. The time frame might matter too: in a recent dissertation, Boulton found that backward planning was somewhat more motivating than forward planning for short-term goals, but not for more long-term goals such as visualizing one’s future self five years down the road. The dissertation studies didn’t assess actual success, so we don’t know if one way of planning is more beneficial than another in terms of actually achieving one’s long-term goals.

Have you tried backward planning? Did it work for you?