Coaching practices for Planning Fallacy Base Rates

Describe almost anything you are working through and IX Coach finds the practices whose real-world fit is closest. For Planning Fallacy Base Rates, these are the strongest matches in the current practice library.

Does this sound like the set of challenges you might be facing?

• I’m putting a timeline on this project from the plan in my head, and it always feels doable
• Every time I plan something I walk through the steps in my head and it feels totally doable in the time I’ve got
• I build my whole sense of what’ll happen out of the specifics of this one case and never once ask how often this kind of thing actually turns out that way to begin with.
• My plan only works if a whole chain of things all go right
• One story has completely sold me on something and I’m about to act on it

Practices that may help

1. The Planning Fallacy — Why Your Estimates Are Always Wrong
   The planning fallacy is the well-replicated tendency to underestimate completion times even when you know your past projects ran late. The fix is not to "try harder" — it is to switch from imagining the ideal future scenario to consulting your own base-rate history and similar projects.
2. Use reference class forecasting for project estimates
   Estimate how long similar projects have taken historically before estimating your specific project.
   Base-Rate Neglect: Why We Ignore the Odds
3. Reference class forecasting
   Before estimating, look up how long similar past projects actually took — not how they felt.
   The Planning Fallacy — Why Your Estimates Are Always Wrong
4. Anchor on base rates before adding details
   Start with how common the outcome is in the relevant population, then update — don’t start with the story.
   The Conjunction Fallacy — When "More Details" Feels More Likely
5. Audit plans for scenario inflation
   Before committing to a plan that depends on multiple things going right, count the dependencies.
   The Conjunction Fallacy — When "More Details" Feels More Likely
6. Base-Rate Neglect: Why We Ignore the Odds
   Base-rate neglect is the tendency to underweight or ignore prior probabilities (how often things happen in general) when vivid, specific information is available. Identified by Kahneman and Tversky, it is one of the most robustly replicated biases in judgment research, and it leads to systematic overconfidence in predictions about specific cases. Correcting it requires actively looking up or estimating base rates before evaluating individual information.
7. Ask the base rate before evaluating the specific case
   Before judging any individual instance, first establish how often this kind of thing happens in general.
   Base-Rate Neglect: Why We Ignore the Odds
8. Anchor on the base rate before adding inside-view details
   Start your forecast from the class median, then adjust — do not start from your narrative and adjust to the base rate.
   Reference Class Forecasting
9. Actively seek disconfirming cases
   When researching base rates, specifically look for cases where things went badly — failure cases are underrepresented in natural memory.
   The Outside View
10. Estimate conservatively and act on the conservative number
    When uncertain, use a pessimistic estimate as your working assumption — not your best guess.
    Margin of Safety

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