About half a year ago, I was talking to my manager about the project we were working on. And the headspace I was in was “Well, let’s just figure out what it takes to move this project from where we are to deployment”. Which is dead simple, almost so dumb that its relevance to me is kind of telling. Like, what was I doing before that? I guess I was just doing whatever tasks were given to me by other people in the organization. Which is, you know, a fair thing to be doing in an organization of some size.

I had also come to dislike how limiting that headspace was. I was envious of people who were not just waiting, people who had an idea and could then turn it into an actual thing. I had spent too much time being the one that could turn it into a thing, and I wasn’t flexing whatever muscle it is that turns an idea into a sketch, and then into a plan.

I think the key is just starting (also a very “yea no kidding” moment for me, I know). Grabbing the pen, or pencil and pad and throwing it down. I was caught up in the process of “I need to figure out the right place to capture this” or thinking that designing the right system was the same as doing the thing. But no, doing the thing is the thing, and if it gets messy, that’s when you have to start designing the system better. Or your experience allows you to blend system design with the execution of the idea. It’s easy to get infatuated with creating process and mistake that for working on the idea. Seventy percent of the time, it’s a form of avoidance that feels good. For me at least.

Taking the thirty seconds to act on an idea instead of letting the impulse pass by is a habit or a muscle or whatever you want to call it. The hesitation in the moment can cost you. It’s probably cost me - too many ideas have died because I wouldn’t do something as simple as jotting down a to-do, and the feeling of moving forward is far more gratifying.