Inversion

Most planning asks: how do I make this succeed? Inversion asks the opposite question: what would make this fail for certain? The second list is usually easier to write and more honest.

How to use it

Before starting something important, spend five minutes listing the ways it could go badly — missed deadlines, wrong assumptions, a single person everything depends on. Then turn each item into a rule or a check. You will not catch everything, but you will catch the obvious things that confident planning tends to skip.

Where it misleads

Avoiding failure is not the same as achieving anything. Inversion is a filter, not a strategy; it tells you what not to do and leaves the rest to you.