We tend to get caught up in the everyday madness of things as busy individuals, so much so that we rarely take time to think about the progress we’re making (or not making) on our goals.
Let’s assume I set a goal to land a job.
There are two alternate ways this can play out. The first one is to only acknowledge the goal once in a while but never plan time to work towards completing it - you simply let the days pass and hope for the best. The second way is to do the necessary planning to maximize chances of success: scheduling time blocks to apply for jobs, doing some outreach and networking during your downtime, and refining your profile on LinkedIn and X. These altogether drastically increase your chances of hearing back from an employer.
The word “effective“ in effective planning is a key distinction that will help to not take things to the extreme. For instance, if you really wanted to secure an internship, you can theoretically apply to every single job you are qualified for and reach out to everyone in your network and their colleagues in hopes of getting a referral. However, you will find out (the hard way) that burnout is a real thing and actually holds you back from completing your goal.
By practicing methods like the 80/20 rule - you should spend 80% of your time on 20% of the most important parts of a task - in conjunction with planning specific actions needed to be taken to complete a goal, you will see that it becomes much easier to stay consistent in making progress on that goal.