Signal & ScienceAcademy

Course 4 · Lesson 5 of 7

Edit, reorder, skip, or discard a plan responsibly

Change a plan on purpose by reordering work, skipping with a reason, adding custom tasks, reviewing suggestions, and discarding when evidence says no.

Lesson 5 of 7 in Build the Right Plan
  1. 1Name the outcome first
  2. 2Set the planning focus and the success contract
  3. 3Fit the plan to capacity and the growth model
  4. 4Treat recommended work as advice, not orders
  5. 5Edit, reorder, skip, or discard a plan responsibly
  6. 6Distinguish a fresh plan from a reassessment
  7. 7Close out the plan and keep the learning

Why this matters

Plans should change when evidence or circumstances change, and every change is itself evidence. A skip with a reason, a custom task with its own contract, and a discarded plan with feedback all reach the next plan; an abandoned plan teaches it nothing. Deliberate changes keep the Plan step honest and keep Learn working from what really happened. The tools differ in weight, so use the lightest one that fixes the problem.

When to use it

When a task does not fit, capacity shifts, new evidence arrives, or the plan as a whole is wrong.

Before you start

  • Know what you want to change and why. The reason is what carries forward.
  • Know the weight of each tool: reordering, skipping, and adding tasks change the current plan; "Edit plan" builds a new plan and uses credits; discarding throws the plan away.
  • Closing out and discarding a plan are available to owners and managers.

Do this

  1. 1Reorder with the arrows on a task card to put the highest-leverage work first (they are hidden on completed tasks and while a label filter is on).
  2. 2Skip a task with "Skip" and pick a reason: "Not relevant", "Already doing it", or "I disagree". The next plan reads skip reasons and avoids channels you skipped unless circumstances change. "Restore" brings a skipped task back.
  3. 3Add what the plan missed with "Add task". Under "How will we know it worked?", choose "The task is completed" or "A business result changes"; the second asks for a metric, source, window, and a "Current metric value" as baseline.
  4. 4When "Suggested changes to your plan" appears, read each reason. Nothing changes on its own; "Edit plan with this context" opens the edit flow. See Review a proposed plan adaptation.
  5. 5Use "Edit plan" for rework, not a tweak. Say what to change under "Anything you'd like to change?" (left blank, you get a fresh take). The current plan is archived, open custom tasks carry forward, and the new plan arrives as a draft.
  6. 6Discard only when the plan is wrong: from the plan's action menu, choose "Discard and start fresh" and answer "What was wrong with it?", the only thing that carries forward. An "Undo" bar gives you a few minutes to reverse it.

What you should see

Reordered tasks, skipped tasks struck through, custom tasks with their own contracts, and, after an edit, a new draft with "Use this plan" waiting for review.

How to judge it

You can explain every difference between the plan as generated and the plan as it stands, and each change has a reason recorded where the next plan can read it: a skip reason, a custom task's contract, your edit note, or your discard feedback.

What it does not mean

A skipped task is not a failed task, and a discard is not a failure; it is a recorded judgment that keeps a wrong plan out of the next one. Outcomes you already measured survive a discard, because they really happened. And the system does not rewrite your plan behind your back: changes arrive as drafts or suggestions.

Try it in Signal & Science

Open the Marketing Plan, reorder this week's tasks, and skip anything that does not fit with a reason.

Open in Signal & Science

Put it to work

Know what to do next.Know whether it worked.

Signal & Science keeps the evidence, the plan, and the results in one place, so each lesson here becomes a working habit in your own workspace.

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