What Research Says About Planning and If-Then Plans for Everyday Tasks

What does research say about planning and if-then plans?

Research consistently finds that specific plans, especially if-then plans that name when and where you will act, help people follow through on goals. The evidence is strongest for starting tasks in the short term and weaker for building lasting routines at work.

This summary covers five lines of research behind the daily plan, first task and shutdown routines used on this site. For each one it notes who was studied, what was found, and what the study cannot tell you.

What was studied?

If-then plans (implementation intentions)

An if-then plan links a situation to an action: "If it is 9 a.m. and I am at my desk, then I will open the report." Gollwitzer and Sheeran (2006) pooled 94 independent tests of these plans across goals in achievement, health and relationships. Most tests compared people who formed an if-then plan with people who only set a goal.

Planning for procrastination

Owens, Bowman and Dill (2008) studied 152 university students who were asked to attend an experiment session. Half formed an if-then plan about when and where they would attend. The researchers also measured each student's tendency to procrastinate.

Plans for unfinished goals

Masicampo and Baumeister (2011) ran several lab experiments. They activated a goal people had not finished, then measured intrusive thoughts during a reading task, how quickly goal-related words came to mind, and performance on an unrelated word puzzle. Some participants were allowed to write a specific plan for the goal.

Estimating how long tasks take

Buehler, Griffin and Ross (1994) asked students to predict how long academic and non-academic tasks would take, then compared predictions with actual completion times. In one study they asked participants to connect their predictions to relevant past experiences.

Procrastination and time management overall

Steel (2007) combined 691 correlations from studies of procrastination to see which traits and task features predicted it. Aeon, Faber and Panaccio (2021) pooled studies on time management and its relationship with performance and well-being.

What did the studies find?

A few details matter for everyday use:

• If-then plans helped at several stages. Gollwitzer and Sheeran reported benefits for getting started, for staying on task despite distractions, and for disengaging from a failing approach.
• Procrastinators benefited too. In Owens and colleagues' study, low procrastinators attended more often than high procrastinators (49 percent versus 30 percent), and the if-then plan helped regardless: the interaction between planning and procrastination was not significant.
• The quality of the plan mattered. Masicampo and Baumeister found that the reduction in intrusive thoughts was linked to how earnest the plans were. People who went on to carry out their plans were the ones who showed no more intrusions.
• Optimism about time is specific to your own tasks. In Buehler and colleagues' work, observers overestimated how long others would take, while people underestimated their own time.

What do these studies not show?

• They mostly do not test workday routines. None of these studies followed employees doing a daily plan and shutdown for months. They test the ingredients, not the full routine.
• Short time frames. Many experiments measured behavior over hours or days. A plan that helps you start a task this week may not become automatic.
• Student-heavy samples. Owens, Buehler and many lab studies used university students. Effects in other settings could be larger or smaller.
• Correlation in the time management work. Aeon and colleagues pooled correlations. People who manage time well may differ in many ways, such as conscientiousness, so the data cannot show that adopting a technique causes better performance.
• Averages hide variation. A medium-to-large average effect includes studies where plans did little. The meta-analysis does not tell you how much a plan will help you.
• Habit timelines vary widely. In a separate study of 96 volunteers repeating a daily behavior, Lally and colleagues (2010) estimated 18 to 254 days to reach 95 percent of peak automaticity for the participants they could model. No study supports a fixed number of days for a productivity habit.

What are the practical takeaways?

1. Write plans as if-then sentences. "After I sit down with coffee, I plan for ten minutes" is closer to what was tested than "plan more."
2. Make the first task concrete. A specific action tied to a specific moment matches the design of the if-then studies.
3. Write a next step for unfinished work. This is the closest everyday version of the Masicampo and Baumeister manipulation, and it is the core of a shutdown routine.
4. Check estimates against reality. Write estimated and actual times for a week, then use that record when you plan. The guide on how to plan your day shows how.
5. Reduce aversiveness and distraction. Batch unpleasant small tasks and start before opening messages, as described in how to stop procrastinating on small tasks.
6. Expect variation and plan for misses. Lally and colleagues found one missed day did not materially set back habit formation. Return at the next cue.

Where can you apply this?

The guide to daily productivity habits turns these findings into four routines, and the 30-day productivity habits plan builds them one step at a time with review days. You can build a plan around your own cue, read the broader overview of how to build a habit, or browse the productivity and organization hub.