👉 The only way to make progress when you don’t know how: make your work ‘un-icky’.
Happy Monday!
When you are starting the week and the day, if you are feeling overwhelmed, just remember the # 1 rule of beating procrastination: Define the undefined (or as Tim Urban calls it, ‘Make it un-icky’. Icky is vague, undefined).
How to define the undefined? Effective planning. Project plan -> Weekly / Daily plan -> Immediate next step -> Action -> Recalibration.
1) Project plan: Even if you have no idea how to progress in the project, just start with a deadline and then work backwards. It is ok if you don’t have all the elements. Creating the plan will reduce the fog, and the broad blocks of work will emerge.
2) Weekly / Daily plan: Within the project plan, now build out the weekly plan. From the weekly plan for this week, create a daily plan.
3) INS: Identify the immediate next step and the stakeholders.
4) Action: Just start. You will figure it out.
5) Recalibration: Make adjustments in the plan based on the feedback you get on the actions.
Create the bite-size or atom-sized action that is here and now and visible. That will drive away the ambiguity.
Once you make it un-icky, keep going. Don’t hesitate, don’t overthink, don’t doubt. Just trust the soup and keep going. When you hit a wall, take a break. Stare out of the window, do anything; but come back to the work and keep at it until the time you have allocated to this task runs out.
Repeat every day.