When it comes to being productive – much like anything in life – there is no one definitive way of doing things. Approaches covered in books like Getting Things Done and The Four Hour Work Week provide a solid framework and best practise for effective and efficient productivity but they don’t cover everything. One of the biggest tips you’ve probably been taught from an early age is to plan. Plan, prepare, do your research. Only fools rush in, after all.
However, this proves why there can never be a definitive way of doing things. Not many productivity books will say this but sometimes it’s useful and better to actually just start. Skip the preparation and do something – anything – on the project. Planning beforehand is certainly important because if done properly it means you get the actual work done much more smoothly (whenever I skip the preparatory notes before writing up a blog post it usually takes twice as long to do).
However, planning can also quickly become an over-indulgent pastime and some work can actually benefit from just getting on with it. Ever used the preperation stage of work as an excuse to procrastinate on actually doing it? Preparation makes things a hell of a lot easier, but it doesn’t move a project forward and how much can you really figure out from just planning? The trick is to get the balance right. Realize when your preparation has served its purpose and just start the work! It’s one thing to know how do to something, it’s quite another to actually do it.
Productivity Tips: 10 Clever Ideas For Getting Things Done is an updated and expanded collection of the first ten posts in my popular productivity tips series and is now available to all. For full information please view its dedicated page.
January 22, 2009 at 07:51AM
I agree with your observation James. It is important to actually get started on projects then plan to infinity on how to start. For example, getting started on a blog post gives insights into what research must be done to complete it. Once a task or project had begun, we can more easily see what is required to finish it. You don’t get that insight from just planning all the time.
January 22, 2009 at 08:31PM
Thanks, you make a good example there. Sometimes I just can’t figure out how to write a post or where to take it until I actually start writing it. Sometimes it’s much easier to plan it, assuming I have an good idea of what I want to write about in the first place. It’s about knowing what works best at what times.
January 22, 2009 at 08:51PM
I think that some people hide behind planning to put off execution. When we start executing, it may reveal that our plan was wrong or that we made some wrong assumptions. To your point, I would rather figure this out earlier than later! That’s what being agile is all about. Figuring out if something works or not and then being agile enough to move on to something else that is a candidate for success.