114. Stressed and Overcommitted? Tips to Tackle Planning Fallacy, a behavioral economics foundations episode

<p><span style="font-weight: 400;">Today, we are going to be digging in on a particular aspect of optimism bias called the planning fallacy. Essentially, we humans are pretty much doomed with underestimating how much something will cost or how long it will take, even if we have evidence showing otherwise. This is why projects like the Big Dig come in years late and billions of dollars over budget, or why you constantly have a to-do list more ambitious than can actually be completed. </span></p> <p><span style="font-weight: 400;">In today’s episode, Melina will spend a little bit of time telling you about how it works and what studies have found, as well as tips for overcoming this bias (and let me tell you, this is one of my personal biggest challenges so these are tips I can provide from experience!) </span></p> <h3><span style="font-weight: 400;">Show Notes:</span></h3> <ul> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">[00:53] Essentially, we humans are pretty much doomed with underestimating how much something will cost or how long it will take, even if we have evidence showing otherwise.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">[03:02] I’m a big victim to planning fallacy. As an ambitious and optimistic person, I am confident I can do things quickly and perfectly each time, and I am prone to underestimate how long something will take me to complete.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">[03:42] I’ve been able to identify this tendency in myself. Understanding planning fallacy helps me adapt and do better in practice than I would naturally.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">[05:10] We fall victim again and again because success is so much easier to imagine the successful scenario than the failure.</span></li> <li style="font-weight: 400;"><span style= "font-weight: 400;">[07:26] Melina shares about the Big Dig in Boston, Seattle viaduct project and Sydney Opera House. </span></li> <