I'm about to start my PhD. I feel I should try to plan my academic career; or set some general goals at least. The time line could be something like 5-15 years. The first years are easy to plan: study this, study that, publish a few papers etc. It gets more difficult to make plans beyond receiving the PhD. I think that if I don't know where I want to go with my degree, it becomes difficult to make decisions during the coming years: when to say yes, and when to say no. I know I don't want to just end up somewhere doing what other people think I should be doing.
How do you plan your career? How frequently do you update your plan and/or check have you progressed as you planned?