The problem of efficiently steering dynamical systems by generating input plans is considered. Plans are considered which consist of finite-length words constructed on an alphabet of input symbols, which could be, e.g., transmitted through a limited capacity channel to a remote system, where they can be decoded in suitable control. actions. Efficiency is considered in terms of the computational complexity of plans, and in terms of their description length (in number of bits). We show that, by suitable choice of the control encoding, finite plans can be efficiently built for a wide class of dynamical systems, computing arbitrarily close approximations of a desired equilibrium in polynomial time. The paper also investigates how the efficiency of planning is affected by the choice of inputs, and provides some results as to optimal performance in terms of accuracy and range.