Don't schedule everything.

The counterintuitive insight into planning is: less is more

I ran a so-called “unconference” this weekend, the Prospera Healthtech Summit 2022 on the beautiful Caribbean island of Roatan.

The idea is to have a loose schedule and few to no speakers.

I got a lot of raised eyebrows and near anxiety attacks for even thinking about a conference that isn’t all planned to detail.

Here’s the thing.

Less planning reduces anxiety.

Why?

Overly detailed planning increases the risk of schedule slippage.

What do I mean?

If something goes wrong and takes more time, the rest of the schedule is impacted. 

Each unforeseen change leads to frantic calling back and forth to fix the schedule.

Sometimes, rather regularly, more than one thing goes wrong.

That is schedule slippage.

Things go wrong all the time.

This is why, counterintuitively, you reduce your risk of anxiety attacks by planning less and instead figure it out spontaneously.

I know what you’re thinking.

You need to experience it to see that it can work.

Magic happens when you leave smart people to do their own devices to co-create a great experience.

It’s just more pleasant to not interrupt a great, organically flowing conversation to get to the next thing.

For your chance to experience it, here are the upcoming Prospera Summits in 2022:

Prospera Edtech Summit, October 28-30, 2022

Prospera Contech Summit, November 11-12, 2022

Prospera Fintech Summit, November 18-20, 2022

P.S.: The Prospera Healthtech Summit had roughly 30-40 people. Unconference likely works better with a smaller, more intimate size.