Goal directed planning is the problem solving strategy of...

1. Identifying a goal.
   
2. Determining the information needed to achieve the goal.
   
3. Establish as subgoals the problems of securing the information needed to achieve the goal.
   
4. ``Recursively'' applying this same method to the problems established as subgoals.
   

This is a powerful idea because it involves a person setting a goal,  and then deciding what they need to do in order to achieve that goal.   They can also make subgoals to achieve so that it will make it easier for them to achieve their ultimate goal.