• 26 Dec, 2025 *

If you have ever sat down at your desk with an empty calendar and hours of the workday left, opened your task list to find it comprehensive and yet hesitated to do anything, instead browsing all the things your could do and struggling to commit to a single one of them, then this post is for you.

The situation, in my view, is a classic example of decision fatigue. Between you and your work stands a hurdle that can seem banal but in the moment feels insurmountable: You must decide what to do next. Then, you must do it.

The problem is not lack of options, and it is often not even a lack of energy to pursue one, had the course been decided beforehand. The problem, represented by that heavy feeling, is the need to do two things in rapid succession that require fundamentally different modes of thinking: Making a plan and executing on a plan previously made.

I think the act of planning—deciding what to do—and the act of doing require so distinct mental processes that switching between them feels much heavier than switching between different tasks, the reason being that the latter keeps one in execution-mode even if the domain changes and that the switch between modes of operating is more costly than between domains.

To minimise this switching cost, I’ve rediscovered a strategy that I have previously used religiously but had almost forgotten: The simple act of planning the day—the entire day—in a high level of detail.

I’ve implemented this strategy again. Currently, my morning routine includes half an hour or so where I map tasks to specific time slots in my calendar for that day. I do this until the calendar is full; my goal is to have as little empty space as possible. Every hour is blocked out with an item so concrete that, once I reach the allotted time, I know exactly what the plan tells me to do. I even include leisure and breaks as time blocked “tasks” in this plan.

I find that having performed this ritual sets a tone for the day that nothing else gives me. The moment I finalise the plan, a quiet sense of clarity and certainty arrives. With the plan in place, I can switch my mode of operating from making decisions to executing on decisions previously made, and I can stay in that mode for the rest of the day. It is as if knowing that I will not have to switch back into planning mode lifts my spirit and allows me to ramp up to a level of excitement for getting things done that I otherwise would not have achieved. I feel like an arrow that has left the bow: From now on, there is nothing but a straight line towards the goal. Execution remains my only concern.

Throughout the day, this sense of determination persists. As I approach the end of one time block, I open my calendar to remind myself of what comes next. As a rule, I try not to question the plan but accept that my previous self made a decision that I am now to follow religiously. Every time I am tempted to deviate from the plan, the opportunity cost hits me: I have allocated a specific time slot for this task and have no vacant slots left. If I do not complete the task in its alloted slot, then it will either not get done, or I will have to sacrifice another task on the plan. There is no way out—no free lunch.

To me, this clarity is a game changer. It is not that I would not otherwise know that procrastination leads to getting less done—of course it does. It is that the cost of time wasted becomes so glaringly obvious. Whenever I procrastinate without a plan, I tell myself the story that “I will do this at some other time”, and I convince myself—I pretend—that there is no cost to not doing it now except a delay for that isolated thing. But the reality is that time is a non-renewable resource and that not doing the thing now means it will not get done at all—or that something else will not get done. There is a cost, and I can feel it. Viscerally.

Besides getting more done in the short term, I think the plan builds the willpower that will allow me to get more done in the future. I still regularly meet my scheduled tasks with lack of motivation, but the plan is a tool that gives me a much better chance at fighting this reluctance. I believe that every time I win this internal battle counts as a repetition towards building willpower and that greater willpower manifests as self-discipline—the ability to stick to a plan and get things done when I do not feel like it.

Willpower is an interesting attribute and one that, in my view, receives too little attention. I think about it much like a muscle: It exists in a state of perpetual flux between the opposing forces of growth and atrophy. Exercising it against resistance leads to a growth stimulus that makes it bigger and stronger for a while. Too long a period of disuse leads to atrophy—it gets smaller and weaker. There is no maintenance except by giving it just enough stimulus to offset the natural rate of decay. It is forever an uphill battle and one I must fight if I wish to get things done.

I think the muscle-analogy is well-supported both by the evidence on neuroanatomy and by common sense in relation to the nature of living things. The old dogma that the brain loses its plasticity in early adulthood has long been disproved. Today, it is clear that the brain responds to stimulus much like a muscle and that, much like a muscle, it retains this plasticity until we die. The rate at which it can adapt may slow down but it does not lose the ability to do so. This is really what underpins learning as a general phenomenon: The more we practice something—anything—the better we become at it.

I mean “anything” literally. We do not merely retain the ability to learn concrete motor-skills or memorise facts. Learning applies equally to higher-level behavioural patterns, such as making a plan and sticking to it. Repeatedly doing anything that requires conscious, top-down control stimulates the growth of whatever neural circuits the act requires, so that repeating it in the future involves less perceived friction. We are—or become—what we repeatedly do. If we make plans and stick to them, we become disciplined. If not, we become impulsive. It really is that simple.

Planning the entire day in detail may seem excessive and rigid if one is not used to doing so. I do not think it is. Firstly, you can always change the plan—it remains a preliminary decision. It gives the default direction—what you must do in the absence of new, important information. It is not a contract you must never break.

Secondly, you cannot escape the responsibility of deciding what to do. If you have failed to decide before the time arrives, you must instead do it in the moment. Do you think this requires less effort or leads to better decisions? I doubt it. I think bundling those decisions by making a detailed plan at the beginning of the day—or on the day before—wins in both dimensions. This is why I will keep doing so, religiously, from this day on.