The Planning Process Appears Throughout Life

Planning is a factor humans use to solve issues within their every day lives. Planning is a central part of organizing business affairs, determining daily schedules, children’s activities and more, it acts as the basis for many individuals daily activities. Within planning we focus on the future, we attempt to determine what will occur in the future and how to make future occurrences happen. To take a more narrow look into planning we can look at the means-ends analysis previously discussed in class. For our purposes we use the means-ends analysis to describe an infant and child’s mode of planning. However, this is a process individuals use in their every day lives from infancy to adulthood. By reducing differences between our goals and current situation humans and infants can develop a process to reach those goals successfully.
The development of means-ends analysis eventually results in an ability to remember sub-goals in order to solve long term problems. The older an individual gets the more steps they can remember to attain their specific goal and will thus eventually develop a procedure for meeting the sub-goals necessary to attain the ultimate goal. An example of this is shown in Klahr (1989) and the "Tower of Hanoi" problem. A child must make their display look exactly like the researcher’s display using seven moves and only two rules: move only one can at a time, and never place a smaller can on a larger one. The children observed are from ages 2 to 6 years and show significant differences in their approaches to planning to reach their goal. Which relay the theory that as we develop our approaches to problem solving and planning get more advanced and sophisticated. Means-ends analysis can be fully related to a college student’s life. For example, currently I wish to eventually get a highly paid job, this is my goal and it can be attained a number of ways. The procedure I have chosen to reach my goal is separated into sub-goals. In order to reach my goal I have determined I need to attend college and get a degree. First I must apply to the college and get accepted. Then, I must take the courses necessary to obtain a degree in a specific field of study. Third, I must pass the courses I am enrolled in to get my degree. This requires many hours of study and attending lectures to do so. Fourth, if I follow sub-goals one through three I will receive my diploma. I then must continue the process toward my goal and apply for jobs I recognize as having the ability to be highly paid. I will have to interview with companies and produce a successful interview that will make the company of my choice choose me over other candidates. In doing all this I will finally acquire my highly paid job and thus attain my goal. Without planning toward a goal such as attaining a highly paid job or in a child’s case the "Tower of Hanoi" problem, an individual will never have the ability to reach their objectives. The process of planning requires steps or sub-goals to be entirely successful.
In my eyes means-ends analysis is the basis to problem solving and planning. Without ones ability to break down the steps towards their ultimate goal, it would seem insurmountable to achieve the goal. By using sub-goals in an ordered sequence to approach future goals we can clearly see how to attain our objectives. The fact we have been doing this in some way or another our entire lives has been proven to develop a method of thinking highly advanced in human beings.