Insights & Thoughts on Product Development, Life Hacks and Team Dynamics — Clips of Logic — T.S. Lim

Make better decisions with Ruminate.io

execution

Just enough to start

Derek Sivers tweeted this link a while ago on how we only need enough motivation to get started and the momentum will keep us going after that. Apparently, it doesn't take much motivation for us to do something. The article talks about how the author managed to convince himself to get outside during the rain for a bike ride. He needed only a little push, enough to get him outside. Once he is riding, it doesn't take much discipline to continue to do so.

My ride in the rain taught me a good lesson about motivation and discipline: we need it less than we think.

The important is that we don't give up at the time when we are most vulnerable. We need to use our willpower and discipline to get pass the initial stage to get started then everything else is easy.

What's important is that your moment of choice is when you are in the right state of mind — when you need the least willpower — to make the best decision.

If you have problems getting yourself to do something, read the article to learn how to motivate yourself. It seems we need less motivation and discipline than we think and that's a good thing.

Tilting

In poker, when a player becomes confused and frustrated, he will start to play a little too aggressively and affect the performance of his game. He can be refer to as being on tilt and the most common way to for someone to be in this state is by losing. I think tilting doesn't only happen in a poker game but also in our everyday life. Like how you can have a string of bad luck in a poker game, sometimes in life, things just doesn't seem to be going your way. And if you react to it negatively, you will tilt.

Once you see everything from the wrong perspective, you will end up sabotaging yourself without realizing it. This can happen to your work and relationships. It might seem like you are trying to solve the situation but in reality you are just making things worse.

The most important thing is to realize when you are tilted and then act accordingly. Experience will help and if all else fails, try to step out from the situation to get a better picture.

Realign your perspective and untilt yourself. Doing anything while being on tilt is not only dangerous to your wallet but also to your well-being.

Lizard brain

All of us have this fear that prevent us from getting stuff done. We fear that others will laugh and make fun of our idea and we don't want to be embarrassed when we fail. Seth Godin refer to this fear as the lizard brain. The lizard brain is the reason we choose the safe side and stick with the status quo. If something bad happens, at least you have others joining you on the way down. It causes us to compromise on our solutions and sabotage our own progress to keep things from changing. Change isn't part of the lizard brain's vocabulary.

But if you want to do something different, something remarkable, you have to shut down the lizard brain. At least until you ship your work out to the world. You have to learn to ship and ship often. It's fine to have your idea being laughed at. After all, when Twitter came out, many people consider it a fad.

If you want to know more about the lizard brain, watch the video below and get Seth's latest book, Linchpin.

Seth Godin: Quieting the Lizard Brain from 99% on Vimeo.

Making time

All the talk about doing things you love and stuff that matters is pointless if you don't have the time to do them. If you feel that you are too busy or 24 hours seems too short, try some of these strategies. You might be able to free up some time to pursue your dream.

  1. Automate - Reduce the tasks you need to do by automating or delegating it. Look for tools or techniques that let's you spend less time on certain tasks.
  2. Prioritize -  All of us have so many things to do that we end up doing what ever that comes next. Sort your tasks and choose what you must absolutely do. Try to either delay the others or automate them.
  3. Less hobbies, 1 passion - Previously, I've talked about differentiating hobby from passion. Both of them requires significant time investment, so try to reduce the number of hobbies you have. Ideally, what you want to do is your passion so that automatically you will make time for it.
  4. Do less stuff - This might sound a little lame but by choosing to do less is the easiest way to free up your time. It's similar to how saving money is the sure-fire to accumulate wealth. Try applying some minimalism in your life.
  5. Set deadlines - You could also set a deadline for your task to prevent it from taking too much time. Only allocate a certain amount of time for each tasks and stand by it.
  6. Disconnect yourself -  The average Facebook user spends one hour on the site daily. Nowadays, you've got Twitter, Youtube, Friendster and millions of other site to procrastinate on. Shut off your smartphone and get away from the computer if you want to get something done.

I hope some of these methods will help you gain that extra hours to put into your dream. We are all given the same 24 hours to work with. The successful ones are those that use it best.

Progress is addictive

​Every time I get something done, I feel good and it gives me the momentum to keep going. Maybe it's the sense of accomplishment or the satisfaction you get when you finally complete something.

What ever it is, it's definitely something you want to feel over and over again. The taste of success creates a desire to keep you coming back for more. If there's one drug you want to get hook on, this is it.

You can make a list, attempt the easier task first or break them into easier ones. The point is to reach the finish line. Once you do that, the other lines will look a lot closer than before.

Set a deadline

If you have trouble getting things done, consider setting yourself a deadline to complete it. Done right, this can motivate and focus your mind on things that matters. When you have a deadline, it narrows your focus. You are now focused on getting that one thing done. It makes it easier to start and easier to achieve. Software companies like Atlassian organize 24-hour code fest (named Fedex day) to get new product ideas.

The time constraint you imposed on yourself can also help you keep things in check. Because there is limited time available, you are forced to do things that are really needed. 37signals used constraints to prevent their software from having too many unnecessary features.

The deadline itself should also be seen as a motivator. Sales and deals have a deadline for a reason. It gets people to act and over time, meeting deadlines itself can be a reward. But try avoid those deals if you can.

Obviously, none of this will work if you don't enforce the deadline. You could try set up some punishment for missing it or reward yourself for meeting it. Either way, tell yourself that you need to meet the deadline one way or another.

Start setting deadlines and maybe you can get more done.

Learn to pick your fights

Not gun fights or fist fights but goals and tasks that you decide to challenge in your everyday life. You can't just get yourself into every fight and expect to win. Here's some tips to prepare yourself for the next challenge.

  1. Divide and Conquer - Split the objective into smaller ones. This should be intuitive. You are not Ip Man so stop trying to fight 10 battles at the same time.
  2. Henchmen first, Boss last - Like in movies, the protagonist always fight his/her way through the henchmen before confronting the boss. Complete the simpler tasks first to build up confidence.
  3. Skip some fights - There is no reason to fight every single battle out there. It is wise to only fight those you need to and let your sidekick handle the rest.
  4. Don't bring a knife to a gun-fight - Make sure you are well-equipped. You are going to need all the help you can get.
  5. It's okay to run - If it's just too hard, retreat and fight another day. Go for something that's easier first (Rule #2). Don't waste time on fights that you can't win (yet).

If you keep these tips in mind, you'll never lose a fight again.

One at a time

They say women are better in multi-tasking than men. I say if you want to get something done, something that matters, you have got to do it one at a time. Focus is the key and luckily both men and women can do just as well. If you focus on a single task, it's way easier to get started. Shut out the distractions and concentrate on the task at hand.

It also helps to get you into the flow. It's like a mental state where you are fully immersed by what you are doing and sometimes referred to as the zone. Programmers often get into the zone and lose track of time.

Another benefit of this approach is that you can prevent yourself from getting the idea-to-idea syndrome. You spend your time and effort on execution instead of coming up with new exciting stuff to do.

Most importantly, by doing one thing at a time, chances of completing the task is way higher. All these small victories will slowly build up your momentum and confidence.

Time to get started on your goals and ideas, one at a time.

,

Too many ideas, too little time

,

If you have too many ideas and you don't have enough time to execute them, you should check out this article by Scott Belsky on how to overcome the idea-to-idea syndrome. By now, I hope you understand the real value of an idea is in its execution. But there's another problem that arise while you are executing your idea. You might get bored and lose your initial momentum and creativity. And being addicted to ideas, you come up with a new one to keep yourself interested and abandon the old one.

Scott proposed some tips on how to stop yourself from going from idea to idea. First we need to restrain ourselves from coming up with too many ideas. Execution of the idea is still the main goal. Stop being addicted to inspiration and start the perspiration.

We also need to run our idea through the others, the ones that live in the real world. Their input is invaluable if you want your idea to go mainstream. Scott calls them the sober monitors.

Try skipping meetings and appointments that doesn't align with your goals. Because when idea-lovers get together, all they can do is just generate more ideas and prevent you from actually bringing yours to live.

I suggest you keep an eye on the next article of the series to get more tips on how to turn your ideas into reality.