Start Before You’re Ready

You need a plan. The perfect plan will get you to where you’re going. It’s time to sit down, and figure out the plan. You’ll make a list of all of the steps. You’ll figure out where your destination is, and then you’ll work backwards from there. One step at a time.

Phew! All of this planning is so exhausting! I’d better go take a nap!

Maybe You Need a Next Step

You don’t need a master plan. You don’t even need perfection. Maybe you just need the next step.

An example of “Work Cycles”

One of the things in Sebastian Marshall’s Ultraworking Pentathlon is Work Cycles. The concept is simple. Whatever your goal for the day is, you can break it up into meaningful chunks. Fix the amount of time you will work on something, but let the scope of work be flexible. One fixed amount of time is a “work cycle”.

Before you start, you’re supposed to get ready. You’re supposed to fill in the little blocks in the spreadsheet that tell you what you’re going to do for the first work cycle. This involves thinking and deciding. You have to decide on the next step.

Getting Stuck on Deciding the Next Step

I have a fundamental problem with this. My problem is being stuck in what I call the Author’s Dilemma. Every author starts with the same problem: a blank page. Every creative person begins in the same way. From out of the aether we are asked to produce something. Many of us fall into the trap of research. We get stuck in the thinking part. We can’t figure out the next step, so we use the concept of research to kick that decision down the road.

For many, that’s where we get stuck. Thinking is hard. Why think when you can go to Reddit, Facebook, or DC Inside? We’re pragmatists, and we know that more research isn’t necessarily going to help us define the next step.

In my work example above, I was asked to produce some programming in a language I’d never used before, living inside of a server running software with which I was merely conceptually familiar. There was no familiar territory. The temptation for several days had been to read all of the documentation. Read everything about the programming language. Look at examples.

When the time came to begin, I stared at the computer. The computer — or government agents looking through my webcam — stared back. It was a standoff. What was going to go in the box? What was my next step?

Would I just sit there? The box would stay empty. No next step.

Would I become distracted by unimportant tasks such as email? Again, empty box. No next step.

Would I decide to get naked for ultimate productivity? Alas, I had already gotten dressed, ignoring my own advice. Naked or not, there was nothing in the task box. No next step.

Would I find myself doing research as Google Chrome usurped macOS as my operating system for the day? Was my decision going to be to kick the decision down the road?

(Aside: if you’re waiting on an email response from me, I’m working on it! I’m just in the middle of a battle of wills right now, and I’ll get back to you when I reach the next set of trenches!)

Starting Before You’re Ready Sometimes Means There’s No Next Step

A “Pomodoro” Timer. I prefer Focus Timer. Simple and unobtrusive, but excellent for forcing you to take a break when your time is up.

I did a bold thing. It probably wouldn’t seem bold to the casual observer, but it was very bold for someone who was experiencing the equivalent of writer’s block.

I started a timer for the work cycle. Without a next step.

This was heretical. The time was already ticking and I didn’t have a task planned. No next step. I was starting before I was ready.

I just signed up for thirty minutes of work without knowing what was in store. What madness.

It was like getting in the car. Sometimes you know you want to go somewhere. You know you can go somewhere. You’re not quite sure exactly where to go. Once you’ve put the key in the ignition and turned, you’re now going. Once you’re in motion, you can always change course.

Lessons from Physics

Imagine that you are walking down a mountain pass. You see a very large boulder. You think it would be better just a little bit to the right. You like to push it just a few feet down the hill, off to the right. Humor me and pretend that you have a good reason.

If you walk over and give it a good shove, you'll probably discover that it is much heavier than you anticipated. It's going to be very difficult to get the bolder to move just a few feet. If you want to make it happen, it’s going to cost you.

Total energy expenditure: very high.

Now imagine that you see a boulder tumbling down the hill after you. It's the same size. You think it would be just a little bit better off to the left. After all, you just went through all this work moving a boulder to the right. You’d rather not have an errant boulder destroy your handiwork. You’d also rather not get hit.

Even though there’s a boulder racing down the hill at you, it’s always important to think through the situation. Clearly that’s what Jonathan Nolan thinks, at least.

If you can put something in the way that is stable enough, you can deflect the boulder. You find a medium sized stick and lodge it into the ground like a pike. You dive out of the way. With unearthly precision, the boulder slams into your pike/stick and gets deflected off to left.

If you are in motion, it is very easy to redirect your effort. If you are at rest, it is comparatively difficult to get started.

If you know you need to exercise, lace up your shoes, walk out the door, then figure out if it’s the gym or the local park.

Begin before you’re ready, and if you have to run back inside for the car keys, that’s ok, because you’ve already begun.