The best laid plans of mice and men: meaning, origin and plan B

"The best laid plans of mice and men" means that even a careful plan can go wrong. It's the first half of a line from a 1785 poem by the Scottish poet Robert Burns, and people usually say it with a shrug after a plan has fallen apart. Many leave off the second half, "often go awry," because everyone knows how it ends.

An example: Mina packs for a camping weekend the way some people plan a wedding, with a list on the fridge two weeks ahead and a spare of nearly everything. One June she and her husband Joel drove three hours to a lake, spread the tent out on the shore and found that the bag of poles was still leaning against the hallway wall at home. Mina knelt on the flat tent and held the empty bag open. Joel, a coil of rope in one hand, was already pointing at two pines at the edge of the clearing. "The best laid plans of mice and men," he said. Mina told him that quoting poetry was not helping. They slept under the tent, tied flat between the two trees like a roof. Mina tells it as the weekend the plan failed. Joel tells it as the best night they had all summer.

Burns, a plough and a mouse's nest

In November 1785, Robert Burns was ploughing a field at Mossgiel, the farm he ran with his brother Gilbert in Ayrshire. As the story goes, the plough broke open a field mouse's nest, the shelter it needed to get through the winter. Gilbert later said Burns made up the poem to the mouse while he was still holding the plough.

"To a Mouse" says sorry to the little animal for wrecking its home, then admits that people are no safer from bad luck. Its best-known line, in Scots, is this:

"The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley"

"Gang aft agley" means "often go wrong." Over the years, "schemes" became "plans" in everyday speech, and the Scots ending fell away. Burns wrote the poem in 1785 and it first appeared in print in 1786, in his first book, which is why some sources give one year and some the other. Both are right.

In 1937 John Steinbeck took the title of his short novel Of Mice and Men from the same line, so plenty of people know the words from the book cover before they ever hear of the poem.

What people mean when they say it

Usually it's said after the fact. The trip was booked, the cake was planned, the route was checked, and something went wrong anyway. Saying "best laid plans" is a way of admitting that you did your part and the world didn't cooperate. Nobody needs to be blamed.

It can be gentle and funny, said by the person whose plan broke. It can also be a little too easy, used to brush off a plan that was never very good. A plan with no spare tire isn't a best laid plan.

You'll hear it cut down to "best laid plans," or slightly mixed up as "the best plans of mice and men" or "the plans of mice and men." Everyone still knows what you mean.

The first hour after a plan breaks

When a plan falls apart, planners and improvisers usually react in opposite ways, and the first hour is where couples and friends clash.

The planner feels the loss of the plan itself. Weeks of thought just went out the window, and she needs a few minutes to be annoyed before she can think about anything else. Then she wants a new plan, ideally a written one.

The improviser often feels a small thrill. The day just got interesting. He's already looking around for rope, a diner or a different beach, and he may look a bit too cheerful about it.

Each one can hurt the other without meaning to. The improviser's jokes can sound like "you don't care that this went wrong." The planner's frown can sound like "you're not allowed to enjoy this." If one of you lives by lists and the other would rather fly by the seat of their pants, you've probably been on both sides of this.

What helps is simple. Give the planner ten minutes to be cross. Let the improviser go and find options. Then decide together what you most want to save from the day, whether that's the lake, the time together or simply getting a night's sleep.

Plans that bend instead of break

You can't stop plans from failing, but you can make a failure hurt less:

• Name the one thing that matters most about the day, and let the rest move around it.
• Keep a rough plan B for the part most likely to go wrong, like the weather or the train.
• Leave empty time in the schedule, so one delay doesn't knock over everything after it.
• Write a short list of things you can't pick up on the way. Mina's camping list now has "poles" at the top, underlined twice.
• Agree in advance who makes the call when things go sideways, so you don't argue about it on a roadside.

If the broken plan was a dinner with a friend, taking a rain check the right way keeps it from turning into no plan at all.

What to say to someone whose plan just fell apart

The Burns line is better saved for later, when you're both laughing about it. In the moment, a few plain words do more:

• "That's so annoying. You put so much into this."
• "Do you want to be cross for a bit first? I'll wait."
• "Which part of today do you most want to keep?"
• "Give me ten minutes, and I'll find us something."
• "Tell me what you'd planned, and we'll see what we can still do."

It's also kinder than telling them everything happens for a reason, which can sound as though the mess was meant to be.

Which types reach for plan B first

How a person takes a broken plan often follows personality type. Eight of Typeza's 16 types show the range:

• Ideator has three new ideas while the old plan is still falling apart, and finds the whole thing a little exciting.
• Harmonizer cares most that everyone stays comfortable. A ruined plan matters less to her than a ruined mood.
• Analyst wants to know why it failed, so it never happens again, and may write the new checklist that same night.
• Inspector takes a broken plan hard, because the plan was the point. Give him a few minutes and then something to fix.
• Commander takes charge at once and has everyone moving in five minutes.
• Strategist often saw the weak spot coming and quietly packed a backup.
• Organizer fixes the practical problem with whatever is at hand, rope and two trees included.
• Encourager turns the disaster into a funny story while it's still happening.

Most people are a mix, and the same person can be calm about a canceled dinner and furious about a canceled trip. Still, the pattern shows up often enough to explain a lot of roadside arguments.

Planner, improviser or somewhere between

Whether you rebuild the plan or enjoy the detour depends partly on type. So does the way you and the people close to you get through a day that goes sideways. On Typeza, a couple or two friends see their relationship type and what tends to come easily between them. The first step is the free personality test, and then you can invite a partner or a friend.

Questions people ask

What does the best laid plans of mice and men mean?

It means that even careful plans often go wrong, through no fault of the person who made them. People say it with a shrug when something they planned well falls apart.

What is the full quote?

In Burns's Scots, the line is "The best-laid schemes o' mice an' men / Gang aft agley." In plain English, the best plans of mice and men often go wrong.

Who wrote the best laid plans of mice and men?

Robert Burns, in his poem "To a Mouse." He wrote it in 1785, and it was first printed in 1786.

What does gang aft agley mean?

It's Scots for "often go wrong." "Gang" means go, "aft" means often and "agley" means off course.

Is Of Mice and Men named after the poem?

Yes. John Steinbeck took the title of his 1937 novel from the same line in "To a Mouse."

Sources

• Wikipedia, "To a Mouse". Written in November 1785 at Mossgiel, Gilbert Burns's account of the plough, the 1786 Kilmarnock edition, the Scots line and Steinbeck's 1937 title.

Written by Virko Kask, founder of Typeza
Written with the help of AI tools.