A lot of people spend too much time planning.

Putting together daunting, complex 5-year plans that map out their perfect future. Complete with vision boards and detailed timelines.

I was that person once. I'd make plans that looked a decade into the future. I was convinced I could plan everything perfectly.

But reality never seemed to match my plans.

Even when I achieved the things I was hoping to achieve, the landscape had changed so drastically that my original goals didn’t even make much sense anymore.

So now I just focus on making today better than yesterday.

This focus works a lot like compound interest. If you improve one little thing each day, your life and business will be significantly better after 365 days. Does it need to be 1% better, like James Clear suggests in Atomic Habits? I don't know. I don't really care. What does 1% better mean anyway?

Just choose one thing and work to make it a little better

The big problem with five-year plans is they assume you know what future "you" is going to want and care about. You don't. The person you'll become in five years will be totally different. You’ll have different values, different knowledge, and be in much different circumstances than today.

Plus, the world is changing dramatically. And fast. Six years ago, who would’ve predicted the pandemic or where we are with AI?

Go ahead and dream big dreams. Dreams are powerful. But instead of creating inflexible long-term plans, just do something better today.

"What's one small thing I can do better now?”

Maybe it's studying your competitors. Or networking with one important person. Or fixing some important, nagging problem in your business.

Do these things every day, and they compound into big change. But do it with the flexibility to adapt as you need to.

Throw away your 5-year plan. Just make today better than yesterday.

Repeat tomorrow.