I have 17 posts in draft form for this blog right now. This post would be number 18, however, the purpose of this post is to clear out the cobwebs. I could just post a simple, “whoops, I’m sorry,” post and say I’ll do better. That would not be starting again. That would just be apologizing for the long pause between posts. That post would not provide any positive feedback on starting again. It also would not be of any value to the people reading this.
I needed to start writing again. A post on the theme for this blog. “Getting started” is a perfect post for that!
The energy involved to start is always more than the energy involved to maintain momentum. This is one of those fun places where you can use physics to explain human behavior. In the physical world, we have to provide all of the energy to accelerate an object to a particular speed. Once we’ve attained speed we only need to provide enough energy to overcome the drag (friction, air resistance, etc.). I often default to inaction due to procrastination, feeling too busy, or a number of other excuses. Here are four reasons to get started.
Starting builds momentum.
There’s documentation in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy that dedicating five minutes to start will help with procrastination. Starting helps determine if this is a thing worth doing and gives a gentle nudge to push through to completion.
I don’t often stop at the five-minute mark. Telling myself that I can stop after five minutes gives me the freedom to start. Even when I feel I may not be able to dedicate the full time needed to complete.
Starting determines what to do.
By tackling the first phase of a task, the remaining steps are more clear and the remaining work is estimable. It will also help you size the work and determine the return on investment.
The first step I take on a major project is often to map out the phases I can see. Planning the work can often expose information I need, people I need to consult, meetings I need to schedule with busy people, or something else I can do quickly to continue to build the momentum on this project.
Starting is getting done.
Recently coming back from the Thanksgiving break I looked at my to-do list and I realized that a number of the items were simple emails, meetings, or other simple tasks. These items should never have sat on my to-do list as long as they had (embarrassingly long.) I used the “get things done” (GTD) method and completed a half-dozen items before lunch.
Starting starts getting better.
We use the phrase “get started and then get better” regularly on our engineering teams. It is useful to get something that provides value to a customer first and then we will take the time to refine the application to be of even more value to customers. If you never start, you never have anything to improve. There’s a lot of power in being able to look at something and decide that there’s a simple way to improve it.
That’s it.
Not a monumental post, but I’m back to posting again and that has value. Maybe not for you, but it has value for me. It’s good to be back.