Do you plan forward or backward?

I think there is a planner in all of us. Some of us are very meticulous - taking pride in our to-do lists and weekly calendars. Some of us plan in an abstract manner - placing milestones in fuzzy areas that are thankfully still adequately discernible on our own mind-maps. The rest of us claim to be lazy slobs - but the truth is we do still plan... we plan not to plan. :P For those in the first two categories who plan more "explicitly", do you plan forward or backward? Planning styles are all unique with their own native flavors. But hey, I think we can separate them into two broad categories - forward and backward. By "forward planning", you employ something akin to greedy algorithm as your tool. For those not familiar with greedy algorithm, Wikepedia defines it as "any algorithm that follows the problem solving metaheuristic of making the locally optimum choice at each stage with the hope of finding the global optimum". Simply put, if you plan using greedy algorithm, you base your decisions on the available information you have. In this mode, your goals (if any) are fuzzy. You may know roughly what you want (like the BEST job, the BEST spouse, the BEST house, the BEST blah blah) but what information you have (like what jobs are available in your area, who among your colleagues best matches your idea of the perfect mate, which house looks the nicest in your neighborhood blah blah) determines what you do next. By "backward planning", you depend primarily on your goals. You have VERY specific goals fixed in your mind. For instance, you want to be the Chief Financial Officer at XYZ bank. You want a spouse who has a face shaped like an apple (one of my uncles assured me that apple-faced girls make the best mates). You want that penthouse at UVW condo. From these specific goals, you work backward to decide how you can achieve them. In the forward planning mode, you just know you want a condo. You will look at your current situation and just try to make as much money as you can - so that you can get a unit at any condo. However in the backward planning mode, you know you want that unit (and the penthouse one no less) at that particular condo so you try to figure out how to get it - like hiring a Private Investigator to probe how the existing owner will sell you his unit at a price you can afford. See the main difference between these two planning modes? One tries to reach forward to relatively vague goals from the current situation. The other tries to juxtapose specific goals with the current situation by bringing them towards you. I would say neither mode is superior to the other. It's just a matter of perspective and either would work as well. But hey, I am curious. So do you plan forward or backward? Or not at all? =) To see what myLotters have to say, check here.