Most of us who identify as nerds are introverts, and that means we’re natural planners and organizers. We enjoy the process of thinking about things and organizing elaborate systems and plans for doing projects.
However, sometimes we’re so into planning and preparing to do something that we never get anything done. We never act.
“Motion makes you feel like you’re getting things done. But really, you’re just preparing to get something done. When preparation becomes a form of procrastination, you need to change something. You don’t want to merely be planning. You want to be practicing.” James Clear, Atomic Habits.
We Need to Prepare to Do Our Best Work
I write a blog post every week. To do my best work, it’s important for me to research my topic, then organize my thoughts in advance.
MindNode is my tool of choice for arranging my thoughts. For me, mind mapping is a much more visual and flexible tool than a traditional outliner like OmniOutliner.
By writing my individual thoughts about a topic in a mind map, I can see them as units and try different connections and arrangements by moving them around. Doing so helps me to create a good flow of thought and logically build my arguments.
I’m convinced my blog posts are much better because of the preparation I do before sitting down to write. So, preparation is a valuable if not necessary step before writing if I’m going to do my best work.
However, preparation can be overdone. I could spend so much time researching and outlining trying to achieve the perfect post that I never actually write and publish it.
Preparation Can Become Procrastination
Preparation becomes procrastination when we become so obsessed with the preparation phase, that we never get to the writing phase.
Preparation becomes procrastination for many reasons:
- We rationalize that there is always more research to be done, always more tweaking to our mind map that could be done. We put off actually writing and publishing anything because we’re always involved in the preparation phase.
- We are perfectionists. We could find the perfect quote, use the perfect turn of phrase, and discover the perfect structure. We don’t produce anything when we’re searching for the perfect blog post.
- We encounter Resistance with a capital “R”. Steven Pressfield, in his book The War of Art, talks about a universal force that keeps humans from acting creatively. “Resistance will tell you anything to keep you from doing your work. It will perjure, fabricate, falsify; seduce, bully, cajole.” The more important a creative project is to you, the more Resistance asserts itself. Persistent preparation can be a form that Resistance takes in keeping you from doing your creative work.
- We’re afraid. Occasionally, we stay stuck in the preparation phase because we’re afraid. We’re afraid that if we finalize and publish our project, people will laugh at us, or think we’re dumb, or won’t like what we do. We’re afraid to put our work out there and be subject to the judgment and criticism of others. We’re afraid of failure. Perhaps we don’t realize that most people don’t care, or that everybody is not going to like what we do, no matter how good it is. It’s just not for them.
4 Ways to Turn Preparation into Practice
I have found that for me, there are 4 main ways for me to move from preparation to practice:
- Set deadlines. Deadlines can motivate you to move from preparation to practice. I have set a deadline for myself to publish a minimum of one blog post each week on Tuesday morning. Setting this deadline prompts me to begin my preparation process early the prior week, write it and edit it before it will be published on Tuesday morning. This is a non-negotiable deadline, and I have it set on my calendar as an appointment.
- Time block. When I do my weekly review and planning session on Sundays, I look at my calendar and am reminded that I have a deadline for publishing a blog post each Tuesday. I set up time blocks during the week in a special “work time block” calendar (yellow) that I use only to time block when I plan to work on my projects. As I go through the week, these time blocks tell me when I need to be working on something. That helps me to have a specific assignment for a block of time instead of just frittering it away.
- Set up Routines. Set up some habits, or routines, to help you move from preparation to practice. A couple of months ago, I started a habit of doing Coffee Shop Mondays. On Monday mornings, I (and often my wife) go to a coffee shop. I bring my laptop and write a blog post to be published the next week or a subsequent week. Since I know I’ll be writing on Monday mornings, it prompts me to get all of my preparation done before then. I may be finishing my mind map on Sunday evening, but that’s OK because I know I’ll be writing on Monday morning. Find some routines that work for you to move your creative projects from preparation to practice.
- Good enough, not perfect. Learn to recognize when your work on a project is good enough. It doesn’t have to be perfect, and probably never will be. I could go on and on forever tweaking a blog post in a vain attempt to achieve perfection, and never publish it because I’d rationalize it’s not ready. I have to recognize that 95% is “good enough.”
Do Your Preparation, But Then Publish Your Creative Work
There’s nothing inherently wrong with thorough preparation. I would argue that in most cases, it’s necessary for us to do our best creative work.
The problem is when we substitute preparation for practice. This happens for many reasons, but all of these can be overcome. We can do things to help us to move beyond preparation to practice, such as setting deadlines, time blocking, setting up routines, and recognizing when a project is good enough to ship.
If you have a creative project you’d like to produce, I’d encourage you to do good preparation, then when it’s “good enough” move on to actually complete your project and get it out in the world. Use whatever tools or “hacks” that help you to make that happen.