It’s time we stop treating “planning” as a task in and of itself.

Internet brought forth a new modality of life.

You “live life” IRL and then you “live life” online.

So it’s very easy to develop a faulty model of “life on the internet” based on what happens IRL. This leads to false expectations and surprises because the internet comes with its own set of emergent properties that are counter-intuitive, to say the least.

The physics of death online – i.e. the death of an idea or a project or a movement on the internet – is one such emergent property that goes against our IRL understanding of the same.

Let’s talk about that.

No time to waste

I think it was Mark Zuckerberg who said that internet businesses must evolve rapidly because they don’t even get the luxury of a dignified death¹.

This statement is so grim yet so true.

Of course, the most common way for ideas or projects to die anywhere isn’t a crash and a bang, but a slow descent into obsolescence. We all know this. But even then, when they’re considered done, we acknowledge their end in whatever little way we can.

On the internet, this seldom happens.

When we’re looking at pixels and ideas, life and death depends on attention, which comes and goes in an instant. Such is the schizophrenic existence online.

Things are alive and then they suddenly die. They may come back to life, or they may not. In both cases, change is sudden and swift.

Planned obsolescence

This spells trouble.

Especially for all the type-A-do-it-all-productivity-hacker-sticky-notes-enthusiasts-and-to-do-list-aficionados out there.

For one, it is no longer feasible to indulge yourself in planning.

Most (including me) approach planning as a task separate from doing². This does not work in the internet of things.

When planning is an action item separate from doing, one tends to go with the flow.

But this going with the flow is more like slowing with the flow, because most planning sessions start with a high-energy let’s-get-this-done vibe and slowly morph into a bikeshedding have-I-missed-something-here vibe.

And their end-product?

A detailed to-do list full of tasks (along with scheduled deadlines for each if you’re really serious).

Of course, the next few days/weeks are filled with punting most deadlines further down the calendar till you suddenly realise that a particular task or tasks have become obsolete.

The sting

I can say with certainty that you know what I am talking about.

In fact, let me present a scenario that we all might have experienced in some form or another.

It goes something like this:

• New project launches with an interesting mechanism/team/community
• You would like to write a deep dive/primer or at least make one for yourself
• You read a few posts/threads on the topic and bookmark them
• You collect links – founder interviews, whitepapers, etc.
• You plan to put this together someday
• Suddenly, one fine day, you realise that there is no point in doing this anymore because (a) something new has taken its place, or (b) the project blew up (both, in the good and the bad sense of the word), so it’s either well-understood or irrelevant

It stings – all missed opportunities do! – but you cross it from your to-do list and move on³.

The antidote

The funny thing, though – and the main motivation behind this post – is that when you work in crypto/web3, you feel this sting way more than you should.

Things move a degree faster than you expect them to, often leaving you and your plans in the dust.

Ask any marketer about their inactive blog⁴ and you will see them squirm/give excuses. They’re feeling the sting!

Well, the only antidote is to think of planning as doing with an extra step; the extra step being thinking for a bit before you start.

If this has been the definition of planning for you, I’m sorry to waste your time! More power to you.

But if not, I highly suggest inculcating this in your life.

At least you’ll shrug the guilt of not posting this way 😋