New Productivity Tool: JUST DO IT ALREADY

Today, I'm going to share a new productivity tool I'm trying to use in my life. It's pretty easy really. It requires no resources like planners or index cards or special notebooks. You don't have to read a book about how to do it. It's only 4 simple words: Just Do It Already!!

Ok, here's the premise: stop planning what you're going to do. Stop mapping out the steps involved with your project. Stop getting organized and JUST DO IT ALREADY!

Collectively - as a society - we waste so much time gathering our strength. We buy books that tell us how to do things that, if we only started doing ourselves, we could probably figure out along the way - and it's likely that we'd find our own, unique way of doing them that's far more effective anyway.

I'm guessing that, if you're reading this site, you're a lot like me. And let's face it - most of really enjoy organizing. We're good at it! We know how to do it and it come naturally. Or we want organization so badly, it becomes an obsession we try to learn everything about. So, whenever there's a big project looming, we delve right in to the organization of it. We get out our pads of paper and our index cards. We start doing research and making notes. We do everything we can to put off JUST DOING IT.

A perfect example - I'm trying to write a novel. I've been trying to do this for roughly my entire life (give or take a few of those early years when I wasn't actually aware of language). Most of my life, I can remember writing stories and wanting to be the girl in the photo on the back of bestselling novels. I've always been convinced that my life and career would somehow revolve around writing. So, throughout my life, I've created outlines of my perfect novel. I've collected books on how to write and I've poured over them for weeks. I've bought hundreds, yes hundreds, of beautiful journals and notebooks. I've participated in workshops and classes. But I'm still woefully without a novel to show for my efforts.

The reason for this sad lack of productivity? I've failed to implement the final - and hardest - step. The last step, the "do it" step, it often thrown aside in the excitement of organization. While organizing may feel productive, it's not. It's only the preparation of productivity. You have to actually DO IT to be productive. You have to produce something.

So I encourage everyone to join me in making this New Year's Resolution: JUST DO IT ALREADY!!

Let's make this the "year of the novel" or the "year of the 20-pound-weight-loss" or even the "year of starting-my-own-business". Whatever your big project is, stop thinking about it, planning it, and organizing it. In 2008, starting doing it!

For a little added motivation, leave a comment below and let us all know what your big 2008 project is. I'll start: I'm going to write that damn novel already!!