Tag Archives: productivity

Get it done first…

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There is a TikTok by @LexNate where she says she learned a phrase that changed her life:

“Get it done first. You can make it better later.”

I commented:

“Perfect is the enemy of done. Define ‘good enough’, get there, then make it better (if you need to, for some things that’s enough:)”

There is a quote that I love that states, ‘Good is the enemy of Great’, meaning that often when you reach ‘good enough’ it stops you from being or doing better. There is a counter argument that Lexi and I are making and that is, ‘Perfect is the enemy of Good’.

Perfectionism can be debilitating and prevent action. “I’m not ready to make it perfect so I won’t make it.”

No. Just get it done. Just start and keep going until you have a viable product or result… then tweak it, improve it, make it amazing. Or not. Realize that this is all you need and save your time, energy and resources for perfecting things where that really matters.

There is a lot of merit in, ‘Get it done first. Make it better later.’ Perfect can be the enemy of getting started and thus getting completed. Get. It. Done. First!

The picture tells the story

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Friday was the last day of school, and while I had a good weekend before heading back in to work to clean things up, I felt very unmotivated. When I saw this image shared by a friend and coworker, I knew I had to share it too.

There is a saying, “If you want something done, give it to a busy person.”

Summer holidays always start very slow for me because suddenly I have time… the time that I said I wish I had, to do all the things I wish I could do. For me that’s more daunting than exciting. I have routines that automate a lot of the things I want to get done. Remove the routine, remove the automation, and suddenly everything takes effort, everything takes motivation, and motivation is harder to maintain than good habits.

So, I’ll go into a bit of a dip. I’ll struggle just to get the usual stuff done, despite having more time. Then I’ll adjust and it will all get better. But I’ve learned to give myself some slack and just slack off for a bit first. And that’s what this weekend was all about.

Love the process

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That doesn’t mean the process is easy. It doesn’t mean you wake up full of enthusiasm every day. It doesn’t mean there aren’t hard days.

Just commit to putting yourself out there. Not for an end result, not for a reward, or accolades, or achievement badges. Do enjoy those when they come, celebrate as often as you want… but don’t show up seeking the outcomes.

Show up because you made a commitment. Show up because that’s how you define your success. Show up to show up because that’s what you do, and you’ll naturally fall in love with the process.

Once you’ve fallen in love with the process, then showing up is easy, and even on the hard days you won’t struggle to show up. Then, and only then, will the real rewards come. Again, celebrate them but don’t focus on them. Focus on showing up and keep the love of the process going.

The trouble with troubleshooting

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Being in a leadership position, I’ve come to realize that a large part of the job is about troubleshooting. Most people don’t want to ask for help, they’d rather deal with issues themselves. But when they can’t, that’s when the trouble comes your way. Sometimes it’s an easy fix, other times you don’t even know where to start. Sometimes it’s conflict resolution, other times it’s technical, and still other times it’s something you haven’t ever dealt with before.

The trouble with troubleshooting is that it’s almost always a new issue, nuanced, and not easily solved with prior knowledge. What I’ve learned along the way about troubleshooting comes down to two things:

  1. Ask more questions before seeking answers.
  2. Seek expertise and help, don’t try to troubleshoot alone.

Simple but very productive advice. It’s hard to solve the problem when you lack information, and you don’t always know what you need to know. Asking for clarification, collecting more data, and truly understanding the problem will save a lot of unnecessary back-and-forth where the problem doesn’t get solved.

Once you have significant information, then it’s easier to know who to ask for help. This is the part of the process that I’ve gotten better at with age. I used to think I had to be the one that did all the troubleshooting, that this was my job. I realize now that when I have enough information, I also often have what I need to recognize who to go to for help… not just someone to pass the problem onto, but someone who has the expertise or resources to fix the issue faster than I can alone.

It seems simple, but so often I’ve found myself knee deep in a troubleshooting scenario where a little more information would have helped speed things up. Or, realizing after the fact that what took me an hour could have taken 5 minutes if I just stopped and thought about who had the knowledge that could have helped me. The real trouble with troubleshooting is all about knowledge… how much do I need to know, and who knows more than me and can help?

The urge to quit

The value of writing every day is simple… I actually write every day. Skip today, well then skipping tomorrow is that much easier. Skip a couple days and suddenly a week is easy to miss… and then soon enough I’m not writing regularly. And then the love of writing and the act of writing get a divorce. Soon enough phrases like, ‘I used to write regularly’ become part of future conversations.

So I keep writing. But it isn’t easy. Even if I’m the only one reading this, I’m still a critic. ‘Am I being thoughtful or am I whining?’… ‘Poor Dave, writing is hard, isn’t it?’ Quite frankly, sometimes it is.

Sometimes life can be boring. Sometimes the things I want to write about can’t be shared publicly. Sometimes the creative juices just don’t flow. And sometimes I have to fight the urge to quit. I question how else I can push myself to write every day? I question if I should put this blog on hold until I retire?

The urge to stop is winning right now, but I know I have to fight it.

“Resistance cannot be seen, touched, heard, or smelled. But it can be felt. We experience it as an energy field radiating from a work-in-potential. It’s a repelling force. It’s negative. Its aim is to shove us away, distract us, prevent us from doing our work.”

~Steven Pressfield, Do the Work

I’m resisting the resistance. I’m doing the work.

Avoidance is easy

I’m back in the loop of struggling to write. It makes me truly appreciate the challenges of authors who do this for a living. Sometimes the words flow and it’s like a poetic dance between thought and expression. Words, and even full ideas almost magically appear on the page, leaving me uncertain of where they came from.

Other times I stare at the blank page, or worse, I avoid the blank page. I seek distraction and call it inspiration. I am looking in all the wrong places. I am literally uninspired.

When I feel like this avoidance is easy. The ‘simple’ work of developing an idea into a piece of writing is not simple, it’s hard. Really hard. Avoiding the effort of thought when the thoughts are not coming becomes a losing game. Maybe I’ll look here for ideas, there for motivation, or over here for… yet another distraction even though I don’t want to call it that. And that’s game over. Time not so well wasted.

Avoiding the blank page is easy, but it’s not productive. How many things do we do that are the equivalent of this avoidance? For some it’s avoidance of a hard conversation, for others it’s a big task, for yet others it’s the minutiae that needs to get done but feels monotonous. Some people find solace that different ‘stuff’ gets done when they procrastinate, but does that really result in a positive experience?

How much time do we spend in a state of busyness rather than dealing with business? Avoiding the real task by doing other things, or worse yet doing something that’s merely a distraction. Some things get automated, habits get ritualized, and the work just gets done. But sometimes the struggle is real. The action avoidance becomes the easy task and the work doesn’t become the work, but actually just getting down to work. Because once you start the work gets done.

Atomic Habits Lesson 10 – Moving From 2 Minutes to Mastery

“You do no rise to the level of your goals, you fall to the level of your systems.”

Goals require motivation, systems keep your habits on track… pushing you towards your goals, while relying on less motivation.

Atomic Habits Lesson 10 – Moving From 2 Minutes to Mastery

Well that concludes my 10 Lessons based on James Clear’s Atomic Habits. I highly encourage you to read the book. There are details I had to edit, like the importance of being 1% better, that James demonstrates clearly and entertainingly in the book.

I’m so glad to finally finish this for our students. I started talking about it a couple school years ago when I listened to Atomic Habits for the second time, taking notes on my whiteboard… Planning these 10 lessons along the way.

Then last year I spent about a 10 hour day laying out the updated whiteboard and recording myself sharing the 10 lessons. And I’ve spent much of my spare time over the past 2 and a half weeks doing video editing.

Our students in our school have more free time than most high schools get. And, from Grade 9 to Grade 12, we really see a progression in our students abilities to get (good) work done quickly and effectively. We see them heading to university and we know they won’t be dropping out because they couldn’t manage the workload.

I hope that my 10 lessons will help at least one of them take a smoother and more effective journey down that path.

Atomic Habits Lesson 9 – Find Your Tribe

A Shared identity is your identity, and your tribe can work together to build good habits.

Atomic Habits Lesson 9 – Find Your Tribe

“You are the average of the 5 people you associate with most.” Quote via Tim Ferriss.

Atomic Habits Lesson 7 – Rewards and Mistakes

Lesson 7, ‘Rewards and Mistakes’, examines two ideas. First, what are  positive versus negative rewards? And then, what do you do when you make a mistake?

Atomic Habits Lesson 7 – Rewards and Mistakes

Most people fall out of good habits after a mistake because they don’t have a plan…

If ‘oops’, then what?