Planning and execution seldom come naturally to 13-year-old Boy Scouts. When I help Scouts from my parish’s troop with their merit badge work, I like to bore them with five aphorisms from the business world (some of which I made up myself):
- To fail to plan is to plan to fail.
- Plan the work, then work the plan.
- How do you eat an elephant? One bite at a time.
- What do you call a plan that doesn’t have milestones and target dates? A daydream.
- What do you call a plan that isn’t in writing? It’s still a daydream.