Comments on: Defeating Procrastination: Analysis Paralysis

By: Ben Cope

Ben Cope — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 01:31:08 +0000

Excellent tips on overcoming analysis paralysis! I am guilty of not taking action, too!! I just recently started my OWN blog, Epic Web Strategies, after FOUR MONTHS of procrastination! I finally decided to just go for it, even though I didn't have all the pieces in place just yet.

By: Ben Cope

Ben Cope — Wed, 25 Apr 2007 01:31:00 +0000

By: Jessica Doyle

Jessica Doyle — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:31:27 +0000

That was awesome. You described well, some ideas and thoughts on moving forward, positively. Fear is agonizing at best. The excuses are real and answering those will lead you over Go.

Asking questions to yourself helps in easing the transition of idea to reality. Calming emotions through adjusting your external surroundings while living/working to suit yourself whenever possible, orders the mind. I find this is doing to.

You made me laugh. Thanks for that. Best therapy ever!

Cheers!

ps – I found you via http://devceed.com

By: Jessica Doyle

Jessica Doyle — Tue, 17 Apr 2007 10:31:00 +0000

That was awesome. You described well, some ideas and thoughts on moving forward, positively. Fear is agonizing at best. The excuses are real and answering those will lead you over Go.

You made me laugh. Thanks for that. Best therapy ever!

Cheers!

ps – I found you via http://devceed.com

By: Jonathan Babcock

Jonathan Babcock — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 04:33:08 +0000

I appreciated your post. I recently posted on getting past analysis paralysis and found your insight to be a nice supplement and confirmation to what I’ve found.

By: Jonathan Babcock

Jonathan Babcock — Mon, 26 Mar 2007 04:33:00 +0000

I appreciated your post. I recently posted on getting past analysis paralysis and found your insight to be a nice supplement and confirmation to what I’ve found.

By: Christopher Smith

Christopher Smith — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:45:01 +0000

A good post. I write on real estate investing – paralysis by analysis is a real issue in my field. I pointed to this post in a recent article on running evaluations.

By: Christopher Smith

Christopher Smith — Wed, 21 Feb 2007 21:45:00 +0000

A good post. I write on real estate investing – paralysis by analysis is a real issue in my field. I pointed to this post in a recent article on running evaluations.

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:09:53 +0000

Thanks for the comments guys. It’s good to see well written and reasoned thoughts on the subject, you wouldn’t believe some of the comments others have made :O)

By: Chris Garrett

Chris Garrett — Tue, 13 Feb 2007 13:09:00 +0000

Thanks for the comments guys. It’s good to see well written and reasoned thoughts on the subject, you wouldn’t believe some of the comments others have made :O)

By: nex

nex — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 04:24:10 +0000

The post Bezkaz mentioned is here: http://seoblackhat.com/2007/01/29/do-it-fucking-now/

That post is pretty much the opposite of insightful. It talks, in vastly overgeneralizing terms, about what you should be doing. It’s like the well-meaning mother that says “I already told you three times you should … How often do I have to tell you to …”

But the problem with procrastination is not that you don’t know what you should do, it’s that you don’t get your ass up and actually do what you know you should do. Unless your most coveted source of happyness is the accumulation of money aquired through shady jobs, the last thing you need in that situation is some stupid asshole from that forum to tell you to forget about playtime and work your ass off already.

By: nex

nex — Mon, 12 Feb 2007 04:24:00 +0000

The post Bezkaz mentioned is here: http://seoblackhat.com/2007/01/29/do-it-fucking-now/

By: Leendert Brouwer

Leendert Brouwer — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 21:44:17 +0000

The situation you are describing has a lot of similarities to how software development methodologies evolved over time. For much too long project managers used the ‘waterfall’ methodology, which, simply put, meant something along the lines of “think out everything first in great detail, and then start developing the product topdown”. It took a while before people realized that during such a long period, requirements change. Modern methodologies such as eXtreme Programming (www.extremeprogramming.org) make change a constant factor in the software development process. XP teaches to release quickly and often. A pragmatic approach is what I prefer these days, instead of overanalysis. If you overanalyze, you get nothing done.
That said, it’s not as easy as it may sound. How do you determine what your core use cases are, so that you have an actual working product after the first iteration? I asked this question during a requirement engineering course a while ago. The teacher answered “the ones that are the most risky”. If only it were that simple. It really depends on a lot of factors, if you ask me. Product managers will sometimes classify use cases as “risky” (as in crucial for their scope) while they are not part of the product foundation. Problems, problems.

These things deserve a lot of attention and progression, so thanks for writing about it.

By: Leendert Brouwer

Leendert Brouwer — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 21:44:00 +0000

These things deserve a lot of attention and progression, so thanks for writing about it.

By: Joost

Joost — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 20:10:41 +0000

Well it’s scary to what lengths people will go to procastinate, myself included.

By: Joost

Joost — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 20:10:00 +0000

Well it’s scary to what lengths people will go to procastinate, myself included.

By: Rise

Rise — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 19:34:21 +0000

Chris,

Few months back I wrote two articles – ‘Overcoming procrastination’, and ‘Stop overthinking, just do it’. I do get stuck in small small things and am not able to make myself move forward.

Reading your article, I could resonate with it.
But I have to say that you have put it more beautifully.

I especially liked the ‘take-home’ message,
“Planning is good. Failure to plan is planning to fail. But too much can be as crippling as not enough.”

Now you are on my ‘keep-track’ list.

By: Rise

Rise — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 19:34:00 +0000

Chris,

Few months back I wrote two articles – ‘Overcoming procrastination’, and ‘Stop overthinking, just do it’. I do get stuck in small small things and am not able to make myself move forward.

Reading your article, I could resonate with it.
But I have to say that you have put it more beautifully.

I especially liked the ‘take-home’ message,
“Planning is good. Failure to plan is planning to fail. But too much can be as crippling as not enough.”

Now you are on my ‘keep-track’ list.

By: Oka Zou

Oka Zou — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 16:35:09 +0000

Seems very interesting. I guess I will read it later.

By: Oka Zou

Oka Zou — Sun, 11 Feb 2007 16:35:00 +0000

Seems very interesting. I guess I will read it later.