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Planning Backwards Floors Me

flooringI’ve always recognized the power of planning backwards, even if I don’t always do it. If you have to be across town by noon, it makes sense to figure how early to leave – counting backwards from noon. If there’s a project due in three weeks, it makes sense to check out how much time each step will take and get the start date by counting backwards from the due date. I suspect that by now I am into “Well, duh…” territory for most people.

But yesterday, I ran into a mind-boggling planning-backwards concept from a friend who’s thinking about buying some flooring. In her 60s, she was trying to figure out how long a guarantee to go for, based on likely longevity (hers, not the flooring’s). Wow. I’m not sure I’m ready to plan backwards yet in every respect. Or maybe it’s not such a bad idea. If I buy a floor with a 50-year guarantee, would I be motivated to live another 50 years? Not gonna wear out till that floor does!

One Response

  1. To me you have to be very careful to plan backwards to make decisions in your life, because it has its pros and cons. To plan backwards to get something done for your career is very important, it just shows that you are making the effort to have a brighter future. It has something to do with your career, a career where you know this is what you want to be doing for the rest of your life.
    For an example, you plan to be a doctor and you go through life’s barriers. Starting with the hard times that you stayed up at night studying, weather it was for that specific exam, or your final project that is due by tomorrow and almost worth half of your over all grading. And now that you are a doctor, you appreciated yourself for planning backwards, because you knew that you would be this happy with how your career life has turn out to be.
    But then it really can go wrong if you planned backwards on a career that it was not the right one for you. And now that you are a doctor, you find out that being a doctor isn’t the most fun job to have out there. You wished that if your planning backwards would’ve being on another career like your friends. Your friend is a hair styled who has fun at her shop all the time with people that are out going that are not there for a sad reason such as surgery or whatnot that doctors do.
    I personally do not like to plan backwards, because I always found myself playing the “what if” game. I am not saying that it is wrong to plan backwards, it just not for me. Therefore, I know that it would work better for someone else then it would for me. I know that planning backwards is a helpful too, because you do your planning backwards first and then you are fine with your forwarding plan. But with my mind thinking is that, what if I planned all backwards and it really turn out to be not right or, it would’ve been better to go about it another way, and so on. But here is the thing, I might and always do plan backwards for a class assignment.
    To be exact, I sometimes do a homework that is due in another two or three weeks ahead, in most cases I might do the assignment just to get it out of the way, and that way I do not have to worry about it in week four. But again to plan backwards don’t always work, because I might change my mind about my paper or the teacher changed couple of her instructions that she stated in her syllabus, and she made a few changes to where it is less or more work to the assignment.
    Here again I am stuck in my theory “what if” I waited maybe not the last minute, maybe just a couple weeks to see what was in stores for me.
    In conclusion, I wanted to provide my point of view, what was my opinion about planning backwards can really do to you. Do your planning backwards if it is only right for you, because there is a thin line between planning forward and planning backwards.

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