Save Time Later By Making Decisions Now

Whether you call it analysis paralysis or simple procrastination, there’s something to be said for the “shut up and ship” approach to getting things done. Sometimes when you’re faced with a dozen options, the best solution is to trust your gut, pick one, and just do something instead of doing nothing.Photo by Sean Dawson

After all, we’ve discussed a number of great ways to approach virtually any problem, and even why some decisions require more than just common sense, but in other cases, when you’re stuck with a mountain of work and you’re debating how to approach it, the debate is less important than picking an approach and just getting started.

Charlie Gilkey, writing for Productive Flourishing, points out that sure, there may be a better or more efficient to get the project done, and there may be someone willing to take it off your hands, but all the time you’re spending weighing your options is lost productivity.

Granted, you shouldn’t always jump blindly into a pile of to-dos and then decide how to get out, but the fact always remains that if you don’t do something today, it’ll be there tomorrow, waiting for you to have found a better way to do it. It also won’t help that by that time you’ll have one less day to get it done. He says:

Let go of all the attachment about how you’re supposed to feel about getting it done and just get it done. Not every task has to be inspired, fulfilling, meaningful, happy-making, creative, or “at your level.” A commander on a battlefield sometimes has to start firing, an executive sometimes has to sort paper, and a politician sometimes has to take a taxi. Get the job done first – worry about the process later.

It’s not the best advice for every situation, but most of us can easily remember a time when we were faced with a task so daunting that eventually we had to give up figuring out how to approach it and just do something. How do you decide when working has more value than planning? Let us know in the comments.

Just Get It Done [Productive Flourishing]