3-2-1: When to be patient, why we procrastinate, and the importance of early attempts

People have an enormous capacity to make things happen. A combination of self-doubt, giving up too early, and not pushing hard enough prevents most people from ever reaching anywhere near their potential.

The limitations we’re trying to avoid when we engage in this self-defeating sort of procrastination frequently don’t have anything to do with how much we’ll be able to get done in the time available; usually, it’s a matter of worrying that we won’t have the talent to produce work of sufficient quality, or that others won’t respond to it as we’d lik

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While talking to a friend earlier this week, I realized that many of my best projects started out as what seemed like a distraction from more pressing work – ignoring my email inbox to read an interesting thread on Twitter or abandonning a work presentation for an hour to grab a coffee with a colleague.

These so-called distractions would plant the s... See more

“Optimism early, pessimism in the middle, optimism late.

Your starting position has to be somewhat optimistic or you’ll talk yourself out of getting started. Believing in what you are about to do does not guarantee success, but a lack of belief can prevent it.

Once you’ve committed, pessimism becomes useful. Question things. Find holes in your plan. ... See more

In the absence of more sophisticated measures of effectiveness, we also gravitate away from deeper efforts toward shallower, more concrete tasks that can be more easily checked off a to-do list. Long work sessions that don’t immediately produce obvious contrails of effort become a source of anxiety—it’s safer to chime in on email threads and “jump

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One of the biggest things holding people back from doing great work is the fear of making something lame. And this fear is not an irrational one.

• About 99% of the time, the right time is right now.

• No one is as impressed with your possessions as you are.

• Dont ever work for someone you dont want to become.

• Cultivate 12 people who love you, because they are worth more than 12 million people who like you.

• Dont keep making the same mistakes; try to make new mistakes.

• If you stop to listen

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