For a while now, I’ve been observing the fact that I’m drawn to learning more than doing. When I’m having trouble getting motivated to start writing, I pull up a course or video and think that it will inspire me to get started.
It doesn’t. Instead, I get consumed by the learning and the only inspiration I get is to continue learning. Before I know it, hours have passed and I still haven’t done anything.
I’ve been trying to figure out how to curb this. I even put tasks on my to do list that relate to picking topics from a prior course and acting on them. Instead, distraction kicks in while I review my notes and I wonder if I should watch the video again, review the course or watch one more video on the topic.
I think it stems from one of two behaviours. I call them the Productive Procrastination and Missing Link.
Productive Procrastination is doing beneficial things while delaying more important ones. I can create lists of hundreds of things to do before the ONE THING that needs to get done and they all seem to be things of value that will make the ONE THING easier. But the truth of the matter is I’m really just procrastinating doing the ONE THING.
What feeds the misconception that this training or other task is productive is the concept of the Missing Link, the concept that there is a key piece of information that will tie everything together. Once this Missing Link is found, the whole world will make sense, life will be easy and I naturally not only WANT to do the ONE THING but will be successful doing the ONE THING.
It’s an ongoing theme for me. Deep dive research to solve a problem that has simple solutions I just don’t want to do. And the more I research steps to solve my issue or goal of the week, the more I realize that all advice is essentially the same. You may learn one specific piece of knowledge that you didn’t have but the actual solution to DOING SOMETHING is to DO SOMETHING.
It’s the story of my life – deep dive research to solve a problem that has a simple solution. The more I look for a new solution, the more I realize that all advice is essentially the same. The actual solution to DOING SOMETHING is to DO SOMETHING.
There is a self help book that will instruct you on how to achieve specifically the SOMETHING you’re trying to do but if you peel apart the steps suggested, you’ll notice they are all the same. It’s kind of like Harlequin Romances, the same story told over and over, they just adjust the setting, character professions or the type of wound the protagonist is trying to heal from.
In pretty much every case, I know enough to start doing the task I need to be doing and actually doing the task would help me learn as well. In fact, doing the task would help me better understand what I don’t know. I need to quit searching for the magic pill.
Coincidentally, I came across the concept of training addiction while productively procrastinating writing by watching YouTube videos on writing. In the midst of the fourth or fifth video (and of course the last one I would watch before sitting down to write) another video suggestion caught my eye. “Are You Addicted to Training?” it asked. I didn’t even need to watch the video to know that I am. (Although I did ponder looking for training videos to learn how to not be addicted to training.)
Apparently, even YouTube is tired of me eating up time watching training videos.
Addiction is a chronic (lifelong) condition that involves compulsive seeking and taking of a substance or performing of an activity despite negative or harmful consequences. It isn’t the nature of the activity or even the amount it is done, it is whether the compulsive need to do the activity or consume the substance is negatively impacting your life and yet you keep doing it. That’s when you have a problem.
Although this is a less life altering addiction, this compulsive search for the magic pill keeps me from actually doing the things that will help me find the answer and feel more satisfied with the outcomes and accomplishments. Yup. Getting in my own way again.
Sundays are my planning days, and one of this week’s goals is to find a healthier balance between learning and doing. Instead of completing an entire training or reading an entire book, I’ve set out the training goals so that they aren’t more than 30-60 minutes each day. Where I can, training is paired with activities that use the training. (I can’t just go cold turkey and there is value in continuing to pursue learning, just tempered with some doing.)
Let’s see how it goes.
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