Do the Work. Focus on Work.
Recognize the Traps within the Pursuit of Productivity
At the end of 2021, I wrote an article on this platform titled “Wrap it up. Get it done. Finalize. Ship it. Share your work. Put it Out There” (here). The main message of the article was that as much as you try to learn, research, or improve, at the end of the day, you need to focus on getting things done. Finalizing your product, whatever it may be, is the key.
We fail to deliver for a lot of different reasons. It could be the pursuit of perfection, it could be insecurities (what if everyone hates it?), fear of criticism, fear of letting go, even fear of the spotlight — the list is endless. One of the most famous examples of this is the Russian writer Mikhail Bulgakov who burnt the manuscript of his The Master and Margarita after two years of work, only to completely re-write it from scratch. And thank God he did re-write it!
Remember — what is not finalized, does not count. As far as the outside world is concerned, a product that is 90% ready is the same as 0%. Using Seth Godin’s language, you need to ship it! Recognize the value of finalizing a project —it brings enormous satisfaction, boosts your confidence, teaches you a lot in the process, and finally, finalizing one project allows you to move on to the next one.
This brings me to a very important concept of resistance. Steven Pressfield’s book The War of Art is one of the most important non-fiction books for authors and creators. In it, Pressfield defines a phenomenon that prevents us from performing, creating, and, importantly, finalizing our work. He calls it Resistance. Resistance is the enemy of creativity. It is the reason people don’t achieve their dreams. The more important a call or action is, in Pressfield’s view, the stronger the resistance to pursuing it. Resistance is strong, relentless, and has no mercy.
But wait, many people are able to overcome it. And this is why the main characteristic of the Resistance is that it can be beaten.
Resistance is always lying and is always full of shit — Steven Pressfield
An enemy you can identify is the enemy you can defeat. And of all the kinds of resistance Pressfield describes in this book, most are easily identifiable. Procrastination, laziness, bad habits, self-doubt, and fear. If I am spending hours playing computer games or lying on the sofa doing nothing, it is very clear I am not doing what I should be doing.
However, there are more insidious types of resistance where you have a false sense that you are moving toward your objectives. This is the topic I would like to explore today. These types of resistance prevent us from finalizing our projects or shipping our products, just as the more obvious types of resistance, while simultaneously making us feel smart, progressing, or busy with something important. We do not feel we are wasting time.
Let’s identify the enemy.
Firstly, productivity tools.
Think of a variety of productivity apps on your phone. Optimization tools on your computer. Well-designed paper notebooks and journals. Cool stationary. These things are intended to HELP YOU achieve your objectives and used in moderation, they can be very helpful. There is, however, a very thin line between choosing cool stationery to boost productivity and continuously engaging in stationary hunting, ending up with a heap of empty journals, unused pens, and pencils (I have this problem — at any given time I have at least five empty Moleskine journals at hand).
Another example is using a limited number of apps with a specific purpose behind each, versus constantly downloading the latest task management apps, habit-building apps, or note-taking apps. I am using Evernote. What are you using? Notion? Cool. What? There is a cool-looking Obsidian? What is that? Oh, there is more? OneNote? Bear? Roam? And twenty more? Each with some unique feature that sounds interesting? The rabbit hole is deep.
Finding a tool that works for you is great. Even better if it comes with a cool style. But if chasing the perfect app is all you do, YOU ARE NOT DOING THE WORK.
Unless your job (or hobby) is to constantly review every new tool that pops up in the market; when you spend all that time jumping from one app to another you are simply engaging in a very advanced form of procrastination. Worst of all, you feel like you are doing something positive. You feel smart. You use something like Obsidian for a few days and it gives you a sense that you are so much ahead of many who have not yet discovered this tool. Guess what you are NOT doing. YOU ARE NOT DOING THE WORK.
Every once in a while, it is useful to remind ourselves that people have done great things, created masterpieces in literature and art, educated generations, become world champions, have changed entire societies and countries for the better, and all that with none of this super advanced technology. :)
Secondly, planning and planning tools
Yes, I just advocated for annual planning in my previous article How to do Your Personal Annual Review. Planning is important. But sometimes we don’t even realize that we have become obsessive planners — making a plan, adjusting a plan, then making another plan, then another, endlessly perfecting our plans, but in the process, failing to actually execute. Planning can become a form of procrastination. Planning is not doing. It may give you an illusion that you are approaching your objective, but if all you do is plan, you are not moving any closer to your goals. YOU ARE NOT DOING THE WORK. Trust me, I work for the United Nations. On more than one occasion, I have seen an annual work plan finalized somewhere around May or June, leaving you wondering — when are we going to get to work??
Let’s be clear. Not planning is another extreme and not a smart way to go about things. But overplanning is a mistake. Find the middle ground. As Eisenhower said: “I always found that plans can be useless, but planning is indispensable”. So thinking about what the possible scenarios could be, what is your plan A and how it may need to be adjusted, and what is plan B, C, etc, can be immensely useful. After all, “No plan survives contact with the enemy” (attributed to Carl von Clausewitz or Helmuth von Moltke). Or here is a juicier version of that:
Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth — Mike Tyson
There is another reason why this is a problem. There is a reference to Ryan Holiday’s his book Discipline is Destiny (although I have not been able to find this in the book): “Talking about something and doing something vie for the same resources/attention. Allocate your resources smartly!” What is meant is that the reward mechanisms in your brain that would normally be triggered by doing something and achieving results, can also be triggered by simply talking about this activity. So when you make elaborate plans, your brain can feel as if you have already done the action.
Overreliance on planning and strategizing is apparently a very common problem. In one of Chris Williamson’s podcasts, he referred to a study (he believed related to LinkedIn) which found that the words strategy and strategizing were among the top 10 words used in bio summaries of candidates, whereas executing was not even in the top 1,000. How about that?
Thirdly, research.
I have seen this over and over, in different domains. A colleague who is reading about language learning, and watching YouTube videos by polyglots, can have a debate about language learning methods, yet is making very little progress in the target language.
“I am researching it”. This can be one of the sneakiest ways to procrastinate. Sometimes we realize it, but can’t help ourselves. We are insecure about whatever project it is we want to start and we feel more research will help us feel more confident. Sure, researching a topic can be one of the key elements of a project. But it is very easy to overdo it. Book after book, article after article, video after video, yet you are not any close to your objective.
Of course. We want to feel ready. We want to feel prepared. We want to feel like we have the necessary knowledge, the expertise. But going ahead with incomplete knowledge is much better in the long run than waiting to accumulate some illusory standard of “complete” information. I will sound like a broken record, but if all you do is research, what is it you are not doing? That’s right. YOU ARE NOT DOING THE WORK.
Do the minimum necessary research and then start doing. Remember, you will learn a lot more by doing. You will know what questions you need to ask. You will get practical feedback and improve as you go. The best way to learn a language is to use it, regularly. The best way to be known for content creation is to create content. The best way to learn Brazilian jiu-jitsu is to practice Brazilian jiu-jitsu. Reading a book or watching a video can only take you so far. Research can be fantastic when used AS A COMPLEMENTARY TOOL TO DOING. But if you burden yourself with too much information, it can be harder to do anything, to take a decision.
Not to mention that you have your brain chemistry working against you. After all, the new information you find during research can give you a kick of dopamine, creating a sensation of pleasure, which will motivate you to seek more pleasure — in this case, do more research. New apps or new plans can have a similar effect.
Tools. Plans. Research
Seemingly positive words and concepts. When used properly, these can add massive value to your work. When overdone, the same things become allies to the Resistance.
Now that we have identified the enemy (or enemies), here are some recommendations on what to do.
- Before adding a productivity tool to your toolkit, identify a gap this tool will help you address. This year I started using Todoist. I have already been using Evernote for years for note-taking and Outlook for e-mail and calendar management. But neither tool satisfied me in terms of task management, so I decided to give Todoist a try.
- Introduce only one new productivity tool a year. Try and test the new tool for a while, then decide if you want to keep it in your repertoire or abandon it. A year is a minimum.
- Before you switch tools, do one last attempt to learn more about the functionalities of the tool you have been using. If your current tool has the right capacities, it is a much better investment to learn them and simply expand your use of it, than to move to an entirely new tool. After using Evernote for a long time, there was a moment when I briefly considered switching to Notion or Obsidian but after a little research on Evernote’s capabilities, decided to stick with it.
- As a minimum, make sure your plans have clear timelines. Sure, they are not set in stone, but you need to have some goalposts to understand when you are behind. Having timelines will also limit the freedom you give yourself in terms of planning.
- Have a clear understanding of what you are trying to achieve. Can you visualize it? What is the intended outcome?
- What is the next action? One of the key principles of the GTD method, it helps add a practical dimension to any planning. Every time you make a plan for a project, make sure you determine the specific action you are going to take next. You want to have clarity on the very next thing that will bring you one step closer to your objective.
- Set clear limits on your research. When you decide on the topic, decide you will read, say, 2–3 articles maximum. If you are doing a deep dive on a subject, go through 3–5 books maximum. Nothing more. Unless you are doing academic research, even there, you have timelines you need to respect, so research should have boundaries.
Here are some books you can explore on the subject. Just know when to stop researching! :)
- Getting Things Done by David Allen
- The War of Art by Steven Pressfield
- Atomic Habits by James Clear
- Building a Second Brain by Tiago Forte
- Digital Minimalism by Cal Newport (check out his Deep Work as well)
- The Practice. Shipping Creative Work by Seth Godin
Time to get on it!
