Starting – Productivity advice.

Posted on May 26, 2008

Most people are full of potentially great ideas, things they want to do with their lives. It’s all too easy for some things to fall into “some day”, and never get done.

The following is a piece I wrote a year or so ago, on an earlier weblog. I still think of this piece from time to time, to motivate myself to get something started.

Start.

That’s it. One word.

If you don’t start, you’ll never finish. You’ll miss every shot you never take. Just Do It (you know, like Nike). The journey of a thousand smiles starts with a single step. etc., ad nausem.

Start.

I don’t care if you don’t know where to start – pick somewhere, and start there. Even if it’s wrong, you’ve made progress, you’ve learned something, you know where not to start next time.

Start.

If it’s too big, then break your project down into smaller pieces that you can understand.

There. You just made a start, and now you’ve got a pile of little projects to do.

Start on one.

Finish it, or get stuck on a bit, I don’t care which.

Start on the next one.

Repeat.

If you get suck somewhere, there’s a future starting point for you. You’ll probably find that when you come back to it you’ll have another approach, you’ll have solved it.

Start by selecting the music to listen to while you work. Once you’ve done that, move on.

Start by clearing your desk of distractions.

Start by clearing your mind of distractions.

Clear the way for starting well by finishing well. Make tomorrow an easy start by leaving something easy to get started on, an easy win to kick off the day. You just helped yourself start again.

I stand by this – it’s working for me, I’m trending in the right direction. I start, every day. Every day, I get closer to where I’m heading.

One day, I might even figure out where that is, but for now, I’m just enjoying the journey, it feels like the right direction.

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