Ask HN: As a SWE, how do you plan out your work?

I am a junior engineer and I am curious to find the best methods for planning work. I find there are two big things to consider:

1. That you want to plan out your stories so you know what days to expect what done, that way you can know early if you are behind schedule or need assistance.

2. You want to plan out work so you don’t end up with a lot of “dead time” where you are waiting for approvals or other people to review. Ideally while waiting for a review, you would have another story of coding and work to do in the meantime, and when that’s hits review, the other is done.

I say I do this decently, but I struggle to find a method that I think maxes my output or does well in the face of work I have never seen before. It’s hard to plan for unknowns.