Planning for Everything: The Design of Paths and Goals

by Peter Morville

We can't predict the future, yet we do it all the time. We organize projects, events, days, weeks, and years. We plan to buy a home, build a career, travel, get married, raise children, teach a class, retire, or get in shape. Our ability to model the world as it is and might be is a gift, but mental time travel is also really hard. Fortunately, since planning is a skill, everyone from playful improviser to rigorous planner can greatly improve, if they are ready to If you hate planning, you're doing it wrong. The uncertainty of change makes us crave chaos or control, but it's as dangerous to be rigid as it is to move fast and break things. To organize the future, we will find better ways, because happiness is a prediction, and it's also the freedom you'll feel upon realizing there is no one right way to plan.

Genres: Nonfiction, Design, Productivity, Business, Personal Development, Audiobook

140 pages, Paperback

Published February 8, 2018

About the author

Peter Morville is a pioneer of the fields of information architecture and user experience. He's been helping people to plan since 1994. Clients include AT&T, Cisco, eBay, Harvard, IBM, Macy's, the Library of Congress, and the National Cancer Institute. He has delivered keynotes and workshops in North America, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. His work has been covered by Business Week, The Economist, NPR, and The Wall Street Journal. Peter lives in Ann Arbor, Michigan with his wife, two daughters, and a dog named Knowsy.

Reviews

[Toon · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was expecting a book with lots of hands on advice for flexible planning in many different circumstances. And although Peter Morville certainly gives useful advice, it is rarely really actionable. He often contradicts himself within the space of a few paragraphs: be flexible and adapt, but also persist and persevere. When to do one or the other is never revealed.
Morville also uses lots of personal anecdotes, which often fall flat. Intended as wise life lessons, they are little more than mundane stories of everyday life that leave you wondering why Morville thought they were especially revealing. The final few chapters are an awkward new-agey self-help style collection of quotes and lofty statements. It is as though the author desperately wants to communicate profound philosophical thoughts on the ethics and morality of modern life, but he never reaches a level beyond that of the average Pinterest board full of 'inspirational' quotes.
Giving this book three stars is generous, but the initial two thirds have their merit and manage to establish 'planning' as an activity that is part of creation rather than merely preceding it.

[Irene · Rating 5 out of 5]

I think I just like Morville, I just like his books. He's great. I like how his books are about design, and business, and product, but also about life, and philosophy and even literature. It's an eclectic mixture that somehow resonates with me.

This is not a technical book per se. Yes, it offers some actionable advice, but it is mostly a long rant – for lack of a better word – on life, decision making, taking risks, etc.

And I really enjoyed it.

[Susan · Rating 5 out of 5]

Simple, complicated and beautiful.

[Surj · Rating 4 out of 5]

Classic Peter Morville

Gets you to think about the problem and come up with your own solutions. Not in any way a manual.

[Stringy · Rating 3 out of 5]

The writing style didn't quite work for me, and I would have liked more explanation of the acronyms as I don't work in a corporate space. But I found the overall advice useful and now I have a plan for how I'll do planning in the future :) I've already started putting the tips to good use - I'm making my Narrowing more Social to help me get past the Imagining phase :)

[Tom Cuylaerts · Rating 5 out of 5]

You feel the experience of working on actual projects on every page of this book. The Dunning Kruger effect is clear in this writing. There is no best path to success, no white and black. This book helps you question your own ways of working.

[Bond Bond · Rating 3 out of 5]

Although I really enjoyed the narration style, I found the lack of real life examples quite daunting.
There are also a few (I counted 4) self evident grammar errors that made the enjoyment of the reading harder.u

[Bart Du Bois · Rating 1 out of 5]

Incoherent mess

[Arturo Herrero · Rating 2 out of 5]

The message of the book is not entirely clear to me, apart from an amalgam of the pieces of Morville's reading. Better go to the bibliography and read the sources!

[Scott Campbell · Rating 2 out of 5]

You might like this if you just want to read. Otherwise it is hard to get a grasp on how to use the content in real life