Planning

Planning will help you do more good with less.

Planning is simply “thinking ahead”. The opposite to planning is the suck-it-and-see approach of trial and error. Trial and error is very wasteful. By planning you can avoid most errors without having to do any trials.

Good businesses plan systems and processes that will make them more efficient and more effective and therefore more competitive.

Planning can also be used in the home to reduce waste and to save money, time and other resources. An everyday example of how planning can save waste, and therefore save money, relates to food.

Food waste

There are no statistics for how much food is wasted in New Zealand but in the UK a whopping one-third of all food is thrown away; and New Zealand is likely to be comparable. Some food waste is unavoidable – people don’t tend to eat tea leaves, banana skins or egg shells! However, the study found that 61% of all food thrown away was avoidable and could have been eaten if it had been managed better. Food that could have been eaten but is thrown away happens for a number of reasons but the key ones are:

the food was not used in time and went off; and
too much food was prepared and was not eaten.

Good meal plans and shopping plans will eliminate most avoidable food waste. Portions can be better planned. Apart from saving a huge amount of money (up to 20% or more of your food budget) the benefits to the environment of not wasting food are enormous. Read more about avoiding food waste with good planning »

Effective planning can also save:

Petrol

If you plan what you need to do in advance you can reduce the number of trips you make.

Materials

Any builder will tell you the adage “measure twice, cut once”. The point being that it’s much less wasteful to do extra planning and preparation than it is to make mistakes.

Time

Lack of planning often results in things having to be redone which is a waste of time.