The Problem with Aspirational Scheduling (and Stretch Goals)

Some years ago, I was often that friend who would say, “We should get together,” then you wouldn’t hear from me for the next six months. I felt bad about it. But working in the corporate world and managing a therapy practice on the side left me little time or energy for following up with friends. Eventually I felt badly enough about it that I went through a phase where I would say, “We should get together. How about Thursday?” It was very likely I’d be late on Thursday, because I would have lied to myself about how long it would take me to finish what I needed to do for the day, then navigate rush hour traffic to get to wherever I was meeting you. When I got there, I’d be tired and not the best conversationalist. I’d be distracted and feel disappointed with myself that not only did I only have an hour, I wasn’t sure I had time to see you again for the next two months. I might try to fix it by lying to myself again about my time and capacity.

I was doing something I now refer to as “aspirational scheduling.” Aspirational scheduling is predicated on the idea that I must, I can, and I will find time for everything that’s truly important. I will make time.

In his book Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management for Mortals, Oliver Burkeman writes, “When you’re faced with too many demands, it’s easy to assume that the only answer must be to make better use of time, by becoming more efficient, driving yourself harder, or working for longer — as if you were a machine in the Industrial Revolution—instead of asking whether the demands themselves might be unreasonable.” This is exactly what I was doing, what I still sometimes do, despite my best efforts. The premise of Burkeman’s book is simple intellectually but difficult emotionally: We have limited time in life. We will all someday die. No one actually has time for everything that feels important. Much of life is having to decide between multiple things that feel important, because we can’t possibly do them all.

In companies, aspirational scheduling often takes the form of the “stretch goal.” A team estimates it will take six months to complete a project. Management gives them a stretch goal to get it done in three months rather than six.

The stretch goal can be effective, when it’s implemented well and sparingly. A team that feels excited and empowered about meeting a serious challenge can be extremely effective and may find it a growth experience. In addition, sometimes constraints that are seemingly unreasonable are the best way to bring out creative solutions. There’s a scene in the movie Apollo 13 where NASA engineers have to make something with limited equipment, in limited time, in order to save lives. But when a stretch goal is predicated on the idea that all things are actually possible, that objections are just excuses, and that the team should be able to meet any goal if they really were really dedicated enough, we’ve entered “boss baby” territory, where management issues unreasonable and inflexible demands and refuses to align with reality. Also, it should be said that the NASA engineers in the film were deeply invested in their mission, which was to save the lives of people they knew about cared about. That motivation bears no comparison to frequently used corporate incentives: a favorable review, maybe a bonus, and often another impossible challenge right after this one.

The antidote to aspirational scheduling, at the individual or organizational level, is to accept the basic premise that no person and no company has time or resources to do all the things. Once we accept that, we can stop trying to trick ourselves into believing that if we just crack the whip harder, we can somehow make it work. We can instead honestly and realistically prioritize, and we can let ourselves off the hook about the things we need to let go of in order to do our chosen things well. On an individual level, it may mean making decisions like which relationships we want to nurture, how many activities we can realistically involve our kids in, and whether or not we really want to be investing energy in a side hustle right now. On an organizational level, it means clearly defining a small number of objectives, maybe even just one very important one, and giving it the resources it requires.