Are you a planner or a ‘pantser’?

I recently heard someone talking about the way writers work. Some plan everything before they begin: the characters, the plot and even the ending. Others start with an idea and work out the story as they go. Apparently, they are known as ‘pantsers’ because they write ‘by the seat of their pants’.

The more I thought about this the more I realised the distinction goes far beyond writing. Some people like to know where they are going before they begin, while others are happy to set off and work out the route along the way. You can see it in the way people approach work, holidays, money and almost everything else. This got me thinking about the way I approach things in my own life.

I’m currently preparing for two running events. I turn 60 in February. (That’s not a call for cards or presents, by the way.) I’ll be flying to Barcelona on my birthday to run the half marathon the following day. I’ve also been lucky enough to get a place in the London Marathon through the ballot, so I now have a training plan taking me all the way through to April.

That plan has already been written and rewritten several times. I’ve worked out the distances, how one race fits around the other and what I should be doing each week. Anyone who knows me will probably find none of this particularly revealing: I’m a planner.

The first night, the last night and everything in between

Years ago, I knew someone who was taking his family to Florida for three weeks. He had booked somewhere to stay on the first night and somewhere for the last night, but nothing in between. They were going to arrive and see where they ended up.

I still think about that occasionally, partly because I cannot imagine ever doing it.

There’s something exciting about leaving that much open, yes. They might have found places they would never have discovered if the whole trip had been organised in advance. They might also have arrived somewhere late in the day and found there was nowhere to stay, but maybe they were comfortable with that possibility. 

I suspect I would’ve spent most of the holiday wondering where we were going to end up next - neither approach is necessarily better - they’re just very different ways of moving through life. It becomes very interesting when a planner and a pantser end up together though.

When couples plan differently

I see versions of this in the conversations I have with couples. One person wants to understand the details, see the figures and know what happens if something goes wrong. The other wants to know that they are going to be all right, but has little interest in examining every possible version of the next thirty years.

It’s easy for both people to become frustrated. The planner may feel uncomfortable making a decision without understanding the consequences. The pantser may feel that every idea is being held up while another calculation is completed.

One worries that they might run out of money. The other worries that they might spend their whole life preparing to enjoy it.

Of course, most of us are not one or the other all the time. You might want to see exactly how your retirement figures add up, then happily book a holiday with little more than the flights arranged. Or you might be fairly relaxed about long-term finances but spend weeks choosing a new car. It often depends on the decision in front of us and how much we care about getting it right.

Money tends to bring those differences to the surface because decisions often need to be made together: Should we retire now or work for another year? Can we afford to help the children? Is it all right to spend more on travelling? How much should we keep back in case something changes?

There usually isn’t one clean answer, however much the planner might like there to be.

You do eventually have to go for a run

Planning can become a form of procrastination. As I’ve discussed before, you can spend weeks finding the perfect training plan, researching running shoes and buying the right kit, but none of that makes you fitter until you actually go out and run.

Some people wait until they know what the future might cost, feel more certain about markets or have a clearer idea of how long their money needs to last before making a decision.

What’s the ideal plan? Well a plan should really help you do something: it should give you enough confidence to book the holiday, retire, help your family or spend some of the money you have accumulated. If it only produces more things to worry about, I’m not sure it’s doing its job.

There is a risk at the other end too. Flying by the seat of your pants is exhilarating while everything is going well. It becomes less appealing when plans change and there’s no room left to deal with them. Spontaneity is easier to enjoy when you know there is a contingency somewhere in the background.

That’s perhaps where the planner and the pantser can help each other. One brings structure and asks what could go wrong. The other remembers that a life spent avoiding every possible risk would not be much of a life.

A plan that can move

There’s something slightly strange about financial planning as a concept. We’re trying to map out events that may happen decades from now, using what we know about people today. Those people will change, as will their families, their priorities and the world around them.

The plan cannot predict all of that. What it can do is give us a place to start, show us what appears possible and help us understand the effect of changing direction.

My marathon training plan will almost certainly change before I reach the start line. Work will get in the way of some runs. The weather may get in the way of others. I might need to run further one week, less the next or have a rest when the plan says I should be training.

But I’ll adjust it rather than abandon it. That’s the useful part of having one.

A good financial plan works in a similar way. It gives one person the reassurance of seeing a route ahead, without making the other feel that every decision has already been made. You may still take an unexpected turn or change the destination completely, but you have a better idea of what that decision means.

I can see the appeal of leaving a little room for the unexpected. I’d still book the hotels in Florida, though.