MacTheDave

1. Get your thinking done

Thinking and decision making must be done. In fact, thinking of what needs to get done, and deciding on the right course of action is often more difficult than the task its self. The problem with not deciding on the very first thing that needs to be done is that when it comes time to actually “do” you have to first figure out exactly what needs doing. This decreases productivity, causes, mental paralysis and is a major reason why people end up running down trails of internet distraction rather than actually getting work accomplished. Your brain can come up with all kinds of shiny interesting things to do while it wanders the halls of consciousness trying to figure out what it should be doing in the moment. 

If you want to be able to confidently and quickly be able to whip through the things that need doing, you are best served by having a list of things that you have decided need doing. These items should be as specific as possible. They should be actionable items rather than nebulous concepts. An item like “Print and fill out LLC registration form” is going to get something done a lot quicker than an abstract item like “Start a great software company”.  There is nothing wrong with identifying something that you would like to accomplish, such as starting a great software company. The problem is that “Start a great software company” is not actually a task that can be done. It is a project that likely consists of many sub projects like “LLC registered with the Secretary of State’s office”, “Company bank account opened”, “xyzcompany.com domain name purchased”, “Business plan drafted”, “Venture capital secured”, and “Software Egineer Hired”. In order to make progress on any of these items, you have to decide what the very first physical action that you can take on that particular project is. If your todo list is nothing more than a list of projects, then you do not have a todo list. You have a “to think about list”, because you can’t actually do any of the items on your list until you think about them and decide what to do with them.

1. Put it in a trusted system

The human brain is a very powerful thing. It is great at coming up with ideas. It can imagine things that don’t exist and formulate plans to turn them into reality. It can solve major problems and can lay foundations that facilitate change, but one thing that your brain is not very good at is remembering things. You are driving when you remember that you need to send an email. You just got home from the office supply store when you remember that you need to buy printer ink. Etc. Etc. Your brain can be trusted to come up with great ideas, but it cannot be trusted to remember them. If you try to use your brain to store the the things that you need to do, important things will fall through the cracks. You may also feel a great amount of anxiety or feel completely overwhelmed by all the things you have to do. The best solution to this problem is to get the ideas, projects, and actions out of your head. They should be written down on paper, or typed into an electronic device that is regularly backed up. You have to be able to trust the medium that you are using, or this entire exercise is in vein. A beautiful thing happens when you get all this data out of your head and into a system that your brain can trust: suddenly a huge amount of the “RAM” in your head is liberated from remembering what needs doing and is available to think of new ideas. You very well may find that you have entered the boldest and most creative point of your life. Don’t believe me? Try it.

1. Do your freakin’ work

Now that you have figured out what projects are important to you, you’ve identified the next physical steps you need to take to move forward with those projects, and you have parked them in a system that you can trust to store and retrieve those items, you are free to plow through your list and actually do your freakin’ work rather than having to constantly try to figure out what you need to be doing.

Does this sound overly complicated? It’s not nearly as complex as the alternative. Think once. Record the outcome of your thoughts. Get things done…or just continue to surf the web aimlessly while trying to ignore that nagging feeling that there is something important you are supposed to be doing to work toward your goals. That is, if you have actually taken the time to think about what those are…and I think you should.