What is Planning?
Mental time travel for solving problems
Planning is your brain's ability to think ahead: to envision a goal, break it down into steps, and figure out the most efficient path to get there. It's mental time travel combined with strategy. You use it to map a road trip, sequence a complicated cooking project, or figure out the order of moves in a game like chess.
Strong planning relies on the prefrontal cortex working closely with working memory and visualization. It's one of the last cognitive abilities to fully develop (often not until the mid-20s) and one of the first to weaken with conditions that affect the prefrontal cortex. The most useful planning skill is rarely making perfect plans. It's recognizing when a plan needs to change, holding multiple alternatives in mind, and switching between them as new information arrives.
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Planning