Just Get It Done!

There’s a lot to be said for just getting stuck in and getting stuff done! There needs to be a whole lot more to your productivity plan than that, but it’s a hell of a start. Bottom line, even if what you get done turns out to be pretty poor quality, at least it’s something … and you can always improve on that. Do nothing at all and you’ve got nothing to base any improvement on.

Here’s a few of the benefits of just barging in and achieving something, even if it does prove to be of questionable quality:

You feel better. Enormously! Being stuck half in and half out of a project or a goal can be almost physically painful.
You waste far less time. Procrastination is the thief of time, as you’re no doubt aware, and time is your most precious commodity. If you waste it, time will come when you sorely regret that course of action (or, more precisely, inaction).
You get more done. Yeah, obviously. No, what I mean is, even if you forge ahead and it turns out to be crap, you can divert your attention to something else and produce some good stuff. How much good stuff can you produce while you still stuck in a half-cocked state? Precisely none, that’s how much!
You start to rebuild your self-confidence. Being stuck doing nothing can give your self-confidence a sharp jab to the ribs, and if it carries on for long it can deliver a knockout blow to finish you off. Picking yourself off the floor by getting something done can be all you need to rebuild your ailing self esteem.
You feel like you’ve taken back control. Because you have! Being unable to do anything leaves you feeling weak and powerless. Finding out you can do something can make you feel practically invincible!
If it’s a job-related thing, you suddenly become more worthy of being hired. Nobody wants to hire a no-hoper who can’t even drag himself out of a rut. Make yourself noticeable!
You rediscover the joy in life! Getting things done carries with it an amazing feeling. The feeling of accomplishment!

So what’s stopping you getting things done?

As you might imagine there can be many problems and obstacles that bar your way to achievement. Again, I’m going to make a list of some of them and hopefully it will light the way to a new era of achievement.

Doubt. You’ve started to seriously doubt yourself. Doubt is the big killer. To the mind, it’s like stress is to the body … a silent and often underestimated assailant, one that will destroy you if it’s allowed to sink its claws into you.

Perfectionism. You’re never going to do things perfectly, it’s just not the way of the world. You can try to do things really, really well … and I hope you do. But slowing down, and sometimes coming to a complete standstill, is never recommended.

What would Leonardo da Vinci have achieved if he’d been a perfectionist? He was probably as close to perfection in many fields as could be imagined, and yet he could have brought himself to a complete standstill time after time if he had literally wanted perfection in everything. He was content to settle for close to perfection, and in doing so bequeathed to humanity an amazing body of work.

Procrastination. As already noted above, procrastination is one of the most insidious toxins known to man. It steals your most valuable commodity, and it does it stealthily. If you don’t nip it in the bud you will lose weeks, months, even years, and achieve very, very little.

Lethargy. If things aren’t going right for you, it can leave you tired and listless. If you’re worried (because things aren’t going right for you), you can end up losing sleep, which leaves you even more tired. Your energy level will drop. Is that any way to prepare to take the world by storm?

You are a pretty amazing person, and you have some amazing stuff to do … and you’re going to try to do it in that state? No wonder things aren’t really happening for you.

Lack of structure. If you haven’t got a clear plan, it’s very difficult to achieve anything. You need to have a clear desk, so to speak. It can actually start with precisely that – clear your desk and keep it clear. It sends a clear message to your brain: you have cleared the decks and you’re ready for business!

Lack of clarity. Similarly, if you haven’t clearly defined what you want to achieve, your chances of achieving it are slim to none. Consider the captain of a cargo ship – if he hasn’t found out what he’s supposed to be carrying, and to where, how far do you think he’s going to get? Probably not out of the harbour! He must have a clearly defined cargo, and a clearly defined destination, otherwise any course of action is pointless.

Other people. They can drain the lifeblood out of you! You’re putting your very heart and soul into a project, and all you get from those around you is a tsunami of doubt, criticism, negativity and disinterest? It’s not your job to put up with stuff like that. Build a glass dome around yourself and your project (metaphorically), and just get on with it as though they don’t exist. Because, to be perfectly frank, it would be better for you if they didn’t!

Okay, now how about actually getting on with it and getting stuff done? What do you have to do to make it all happen?

Here’s a few ideas …

Clarify. Get ONE single thing and make it your priority, your major goal. Not half a dozen. Not three. ONE. Keep it simple, and you’re on your way to achievement. Do you think Michelangelo was doing a few little jobs on the side while he was carving the David? Do you think he had a habit of slipping out for a few beers every afternoon while he was working on the Sistine chapel?
Chunk it! Any goal, no matter how big, can be broken down into small chunks. Doesn’t matter if it’s doing the shopping or building a suspension bridge. Chunk it down, and make it easy to make a start. You can only eat an elephant one bite at a time!
Start! It always comes down to making a start. Anything anyone ever did had a beginning, and if it didn’t, it didn’t get done, simple as that. Don’t put if off. Just start!
Start early. Every single day, make an early start. Do something positive early on, and preferably within a structured framework. Don’t stumble out of bed like a student after a night out, get up like a fighter training for a championship bout.
Prepare. Each evening, work on tomorrow’s action steps. DON’T leave it to chance. Get up every morning knowing there are about three action steps you need to get done. Make sure you get started on the first one early, and work your way through them steadily. Ignore Facebook and all the other insidious time-wasters. If it’s not intimately connected with your goal, ditch it!
Fail. Be prepared to fail, because everyone fails sometimes, and people who fail a lot have a much bigger chance of succeeding eventually. Michael Jordan, widely considered to be the greatest basketball player of all time, knows all about failing. Hear his now-famous quote: “I’ve missed over 9,000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times I’ve been trusted to take the game-winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.

As you can see, failing isn’t really failing anyway … it’s just taking steps towards success. Thomas Edison experimented endlessly before he found a material that would work as a filament in his new electric light bulb. When asked how many times he had failed he told them he hadn’t failed, he’d just taken ten thousand steps to reach his destination!
Perception. Always be prepared and eager to reframe a situation. Just like Edison, you can change the way you see a situation, and no matter how bad it might appear to someone else, to you it will be a positive situation simply bubbling over with potential. It’s all in the mind!
Routine. Don’t just let life happen. It will, unless you shape it to suit yourself. And the way to do that is to have a fixed routine. Get up at the same time every morning. Get to bed about the same time each night. When you get up, make your bed. Take a shower. Do some light exercise. Meditate for a few minutes. Review what you have planned for the day. Keep a record of what you do and what you aim to do.

This one thing alone will see you rack up achievements, big and small, at a remarkable rate! Oh, and by the way, there are no small achievements … remember, it’s all about perception!
Gratitude. We, every one of us, owe everything to some higher power. It’s not particularly fashionable these days to talk about these things, but the Great Spirit, or whatever term you’d like to use, is very real. Without it, we are nothing. We owe it our lives. And if you want to prosper, stop being fashionable! Start being grateful. And practise gratitude every single day.
Lists. Making lists is one of the simplest productivity tools there is, but it’s also one of the most powerful. Make lists of your skills, your weaknesses, your abilities, your goals, your dreams, the things you aim to master, the steps you need to take, the programs you need to learn so you can make them, and on and on and on.Make a list of all your list just for reference, or just to keep your hand in!

You’re going to make a fortune being more productive, right? So make a list of some of the stuff you’re going to treat yourself with. No good earning all that money if you’re not going to spend some of it. So make a list, and start dreaming of what’s to come 🙂

I just know this will help you become more productive. I want you to prosper and to feel the joy of achievement. I want you to look back on this as a turning point in your life. But to make that happen, one more thing is required, and it is the single most important thing in the world as far as achievement goes.

You must TAKE ACTION! Don’t just think about it … DO IT!