How to Do Things
Back to Productivity.
Related: Finishing Things from two months ago is also about doing things, but from a "here’s how I’m dealing with the ebb and flow of my time and energy" angle.
The title of this card from the video of the same name by Anna Ladd from her sincere on main YouTube Channel. I previously made another "fan page" (though you could call it a "commonplace book" entry if you’re feeling fancy) for a video of hers in aura.
Anna has one of the best lists I’ve ever heard for "doing things". I say "best" because her list is stuff that works for me. It may not work for you. And it’s the "best" because she explains it so well and with such a great sense of humor.
Here’s Anna’s list. All quotes from her video unless otherwise noted:
1. Plan to do a thing. When the time comes to do it, write down why you are or are not doing it.
"What kind of reasons are you coming up with to not [do the thing]? Write them down. Over time, patterns start to emerge. You are likely not avoiding [the thing] for a new and unique reason every single day. It is likely the same over and over."
Being able to see the pattern lets you figure out how to handle it when it happens next time.
"You can say, 'I know I’m going to have this thought. I have it every single time. Here’s what I’m going to say in response to that.'"
And when you have a successful day, you start to build evidence that you’ve done it and what worked, how you felt about it, etc. For me, this is the key to building up Wisdom.
2. Stop it with the "I am just like this, I can’t do this sort of thing" talk. Change it to "this is going to be harder for me" or "this will take me more tries than other people."
"I am going to have to seek out strategies to help me do something that comes to other people naturally. That sucks and that’s annoying, but I want to do it anyway…"
Again, write this stuff down.
3. Don’t use self care or "treat yourself" as a reason to not ever do anything.
"There’s relaxing when you need to relax […] and then there’s 'every day is a break' at which point it stops being a break. That’s just a lifestyle of not doing things."
This is where I embrace Intentional Rest - the honest evaluation that you do, in fact, need a break for whatever reason. When I rest with intention, it is always the best, most guilt-free rest.
4. To get a habit going, don’t try to get a habit going. Just do it once and do it poorly.
"The more times you do things, the more habitual the become. But you can’t get to that point if you never do it for the first time, which is unfortunately, the hardest time."
This is how I got over whatever fear was getting in the way of drawing in sketchbooks. Just scribble on the first page and now you don’t have to worry about ruining some pages because you already have! Then just keep making mistakes in that sketchbook until it’s full. Go do it now - go wreck the first page of a sketchbook!
Or how about using up notebooks? Afraid you’ll abandon it? You probably will! Go ahead and start that notebook anyway. It turns out you can take over that notebook later with your daily journaling or whatever. Which actually makes it kind of charming. Keep using the leftover pages until it’s full. I’ve done it a dozen times now. Wild stuff.
A commenter on Anna’s video also added a quote I’ve seen before that is worth capturing here: "All or nothing really just means nothing."
Embrace being crap at some things!
5. Learn to stop judging yourself and just learn from your results. You don’t suck because you missed some days on your habit tracker. Conversely, you’re not an infallible superhuman because you got a bunch of days in a row.
It just is what it is. I think this is very much in line with the concept of neutrality I wrote about in this card: This too shall pass.
"Your value as a person does not rest in how good you are checking off boxes. That is all just data. What worked? What didn’t? How can we make more stuff work?"
6. Throw out "I don’t want to do it" as a reason not to do something. There are better reasons.
"You do not need to wait for your mood to align with your goals. You can just do it anyway and let the desire to do it happen later."
I completely agree. I’ve often struggled with, "Should I force myself to do something that I like to do and want to do, but don’t feel like doing right this moment?" And the answer has often been, "Yes, actually." Because I rarely regret doing something that I like and want to do! (When I regretted it, it turns out I didn’t like or want to do that thing - I just thought I did… Or should.)
On the other hand, Baldur Bjarnason writes in The different kinds of notes (baldurbjarnason.com):
"Flipping to the next page [of Julia Cameron’s book The Artist’s Way], I can also immediately see the one paragraph that later led to all of my notetaking misery: 'Morning pages are nonnegotiable. Never skip or skimp on morning pages. Your mood doesn’t matter.' If you ever read her book, ignore this paragraph. Your mood does matter in the long run. Don’t beat yourself up about it. There are other ways to accomplish the same thing without torturing yourself. What’s especially galling is that I clearly didn’t finish reading the book at the time as its entire purpose is to prevent people from making the mistake that I made."
Though they sound at odds with each other, both Anna and Baldur are totally on the same page: It will take practice to learn how much you should push yourself.
To paraphrase all pharmaceutical commercials, "Ask yourself if pushing yourself is right for you."
7. Don’t let comparisons with other people’s situations make you feel bad and prevent you from improving yourself.
"In this life, there will be people who do things that you can’t. You will do things that other people can’t. There will be all sorts of reasons why that happens. Some of them societal, many of them unfair… I let the guilt of that stop me from doing things. Don’t do that."
8. Allow yourself the grace to give it time because that time is going to pass anyway.
"Whatever your goal may be, the thing you want to do, the life you want to have, it may feel very far away. It may, in fact, take years to get there. But those years are going to happen whether you do it or not. So you might as well try."
Anna concludes:
"Once a week I will do something and [be so glad] that I tried back when trying was a lot harder than it is now. I’m so glad that I stuck with it, not knowing that the outcome was going to be like this. Trying a lot over time is like a [retirement investment plan] for the brain. It’s compounding interest for trying. I have so much evidence now… And the difference is that I have years of trying banked up now… The whole thing about compounding interest takes time."
Which ties perfectly with the latest piece by David Cain, which I enjoyed quite a bit…
Some related 'Raptitude' pages
Do Things You’ll Love Yourself For (raptitude.com):
"The quality of this relationship between Present Self and Future Self shapes your whole life. If it’s a loving relationship, you’ll do well, because you’re always both people, and loving actions benefit both players. […] Self-discipline has its place, but I think there’s a better, more human way to get there: regard everything you do as an opportunity to love the other guy. Lovingly pack his lunch for him. Shine the sink for him. Get the thing done Friday afternoon, not because it’s rational, but because you love Monday Guy."
Two other recent David Cain pieces on the subject of getting things done:
How to Just Do a Thing (raptitude.com):
On the crippling number of options vying for our time in the modern world:
"I used to think you could self-improve your way out of this situation. Ironclad discipline, if you could develop it, could keep you focused on your best courses of action. But even 4th-century desert-dwelling monks didn’t trust self-discipline to save them, which is why they lived in caves and tried not to even see a city, or food more exciting than bread."
We Don’t Remember What We Think, Only What We Do (raptitude.com):
"An idea doesn’t do anything until it becomes actions. Printing an idea on paper makes it more tangible, but keeps it in idea form. Ultimately it has to leave the realm of words and get printed onto your motor neurons. If it doesn’t, the spark of insight fades and nothing comes of it."