Not Doing All the Things We Want to Do

Source http://zenhabits.net/optimism/

By Leo Babauta

I think we’ve all been there: we’ve signed up for the gym, signed up for a class, bought an ebook … and then not used it.

We’ve had hopes of learning to draw, to program, to play a musical instrument … and then promptly failed to do so.

We’ve had the best intentions for a project (maybe starting a blog or writing a book). We’ve had the best intentions for our day, to be productive and kick some butt.

And then our plans fall apart. We fail to live up to our hopes.

Why is this? What’s wrong with us?

In my experience, there are a few key obstacles:

  1. We are overly optimistic. We think we’re going to be able to do about 2-5 times what we can actually do. We only have so much capacity, only so much energy, only so much time in the day. But we are not very good at estimating any of those, and we also think the things we want to do are going to take way less time than they’ll actually take. Optimism beats us every time.
  2. We don’t account for the little things. This goes hand-in-hand with the optimism, but when we’re thinking about our plans, we don’t think about all the tiny things, like maintenance tasks, that need to be done in order to accomplish our plans … or even just to live. We don’t think about showering, brushing our teeth, getting dressed, cooking, eating, clean…

Source http://zenhabits.net/optimism/

By Leo Babauta

I think we’ve all been there: we’ve signed up for the gym, signed up for a class, bought an ebook … and then not used it.

We’ve had hopes of learning to draw, to program, to play a musical instrument … and then promptly failed to do so.

We’ve had the best intentions for a project (maybe starting a blog or writing a book). We’ve had the best intentions for our day, to be productive and kick some butt.

And then our plans fall apart. We fail to live up to our hopes.

Why is this? What’s wrong with us?

In my experience, there are a few key obstacles:

  1. We are overly optimistic. We think we’re going to be able to do about 2-5 times what we can actually do. We only have so much capacity, only so much energy, only so much time in the day. But we are not very good at estimating any of those, and we also think the things we want to do are going to take way less time than they’ll actually take. Optimism beats us every time.
  2. We don’t account for the little things. This goes hand-in-hand with the optimism, but when we’re thinking about our plans, we don’t think about all the tiny things, like maintenance tasks, that need to be done in order to accomplish our plans … or even just to live. We don’t think about showering, brushing our teeth, getting dressed, cooking, eating, clean…

    What Do You Think?

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