When I’m diving into an application of some knowledge for the first time —say programming a theoretical model seen in a book— I may feel insecure. Maybe I have read a lot about the model and I’ve reached a good level of understanding about it and I’m ready to apply the knowledge. Maybe I have already solved some guided example on my own but, still, I feel a feeling of unease, similar to the procrastination feeling, when something stops you from starting the next task.
What comes out of this insecurity is that I end up retracing my steps and re-reading and re-studying the same material, again and again, maybe looking for a new book to study, some random search on the internet, or reviewing the same old papers that I have already focused on previously.
“I may have missed something important”, “It doesn’t hurt to read a little bit more”, “It is important to master the material thoroughly before jumping into the water”. This is why I usually tell myself.
While this attitude can help you develop a deep knowledge of the topic, this perfectionism sometimes hides a tendency to avoid changes caused by being afraid of making mistakes. It can be a heavy stopper in your work.
This is an advanced type of procrastination. You are not wasting your time, you are studying and learning deeper, or at least you tell yourself that. Let’s call this the ultimate procrastination, the best disguise of procrastination. It really looks like the appropriate next thing to do.
The ultimate procrastination is based on overlearning, a phenomenon by which one reviews the same material over and over because of the gratifying sensation that reading things you already know gives. Check the amazing course of Barbara Oakley Learning How to Learn if you want to know more about these issues.
Less talking and more doing
A rule in innovation says that it is OK not to be prepared for any single casualty that may arise in the middle of the project. It is better to just do something, carry on a prototype of the machine or code you want to create. If it does not fit all the requirements you will need in the end, at least you will have gained some valuable insights into the problem-solving techniques and you can take the result of this first iteration as the starting point of the next iteration. This is usually a faster way to reach a certain target better than trying to figure everything out prior to doing anything, which is also generally a not very realistic approach.
In a project, you cannot foresee anything that will go wrong. Of course, for an experienced professional it is easier to prevent typical errors and bad practices, but one can never avoid everything that can go wrong. So avoid overlearning as much as physically possible.
The imposter syndrome
This working issue we have been talking about is related to the imposter syndrome. The imposter syndrome happens to people usually new in their field and surrounded by people more experienced than them. These people feel they don’t have the right skills to do their job and they don’t deserve the job. Then, they whip themselves for being nonqualified and this stops them from being successful in their job, even without giving it a chance.
Beating the imposter syndrome is similar to the quick prototyping thing we’ve emphasized above. Just give it a try. And after that, another try. After all, time will show you if you deserve your place or not, if you are good at what you do or not, and justice will be made. Before that, it makes no sense to do self-injuring with bad feelings.
The importance of planning
A useful tool for tackling the ultimate procrastination is medium-term planning. This can be set by answering a few key questions:
- How many months/years do you have left to end your project?
- What is the objective/s? You can determine this depending on the deliverables of the project, either a computer program, a physical prototype or a thesis report.
- What subproducts needs to have this final product? For a thesis document, for example, its structure is usually arranged by your university.
With the first question, you will set the time scope. You won’t have more time than this, so you have to get things done all inside this period.
The second question‘s answer helps to set the cornerstone of all the activities related to your project, while the third will establish smaller time periods regarding the different activities necessary to achieve the final goal. After this, you will have to distribute all these activities along the calendar offered by question 1. When estimating the time needed for a task, always multiply the time you think you’ll need by a safety coefficient of 1.5, or even 2 if not sure at all.
For daily routine, make a weekly planning where you specify the time you have available for each kind of tasks.
After this medium-term, long-term review, the project has to move on. If time is running out for a certain activity, you will need to relax the specifications of its goal. You will be rarely given extra time as a present, and you will not want to spend the last month of the project with no sleep and losing your mind. So stick to the plan as reasonably as possible and relax/reduce expectations if you underestimated the time you would need for a certain task.
And the most important: trust yourself.