Don’t lose your “today” between “yesterday” and “tomorrow”.
Written by Maria.
The importance of a “just do it” attitude
What I’ve already learned from my internship and particularly startups – doing is actually better than preparing. I started to do things straight away, not preparing for ages. Nowadays we go side by side with technologies. People make mistakes, technologies are here to help. There is no need to be afraid of doing when you can always create a better version. Update is the word of our age.
So what stops you?
Waiting for inspiration
Writer’s block is a problem and as we all know, when you admit you have a problem, you make a first step to solve it. You may remember how easy it was to write all day long, when your thoughts were clear and pencil sharp. Now you are desperate: everything distracts you – you spend ages spinning in your chair, noise irritates you, silence makes you hear every single drop falling in the sink. You keep checking Facebook every 3 minutes… You can invent one hundred excuses why you can’t write a word, while the time is running.
Some people say “make yourself write”, others – “nothing written without inspiration can be read with pleasure”. I believe you should mix these two pieces of advice. Don’t waste your time waiting for inspiration. Make yourself write, but write only about things that inspire you, or things that make you lose inspiration.
Laziness and Talent
Laziness is the worst thing in the world. It is pure evil pretending to be your funny old friend. It destroys you from the inside while you wonder why your life goes downstream.
Some people get lost in vanity – they are proud of themselves because they can do something as good as others, who try hard. Actually, there’s nothing to be proud of. Talented people often care less about what they do because they know they are talented. They’ve heard it hundred times from parents, teachers, friends. Why should they put more effort in their work? Only when someone less talented but far more diligent leaves them behind, they start to think.
Remember, Albert Einstein said “Genius is 1% talent and 99% hard word.”
Why perfectionism has so much in common with procrastination
It is always good to do your best, to bring your passion and inspiration to your project. Those who work harder are usually more successful. However, too much of anything can ruin everything.
Image: Ludie Cochrane
Perfectionism has much in common with maximalism. All or nothing. The problem with people focused on perfectionism is that they are never satisfied with ‘enough’. Perfectionists can’t even imagine that something can be done in a minute, without an enormous amount of preparation, while eternal correction leads to a waste of time. Perfectionists starts to panic when they realize they maybe late for a deadline. And you should know, procrastinators love deadlines.
Procrastination has two angles – laziness and perfectionism. Both lazybones and workaholics are more liable to procrastination, than those who know their limits. Lazybones don’t do anything, and workaholics try to get as much work as they can and in the end can’t complete anything. Keep the balance between laziness and perfectionism, and you’ll get to the golden middle of time management.
If you decide to create a product – you should create a basic product and sell it, iterating it on the way, creating new versions and additions, not trying to make it perfect. We live in the world where the most perfect word is “new”.
The only area where perfectionism can live and blossom is… you. Update your life constantly, self development is the only way to be sure you’ve done something good enough and your “enough” is perfect.