Recently a friend of mine decided that he wasn’t making enough progress toward a certain goal. After a brief discussion we reached the conclusion that a coach could give him guidance and keep him accountable.
This exchange reminded me to continue my pursuit for a coach in a similar category that had been derailed due to a combination of choice fatigue and the fact that my fist pick hadn’t worked out well. I told myself I’d do some more research and find one soon.
Four days later I saw my friend at the gym and asked him how his search for his coach was going in hopes of sharing how he inspired me to continue my search.
Great. I met with him yesterday. My first assignment is to do [X], which is why I’m currently doing [X] (at gym). We’re meet back up to discuss later this week.
My friend wasn’t messing around. His coach didn’t check off every box, but it was working for him and he was already making progress.
You can tell when someone isn’t messing around because they stand out. They directly pursue their goals, they complete their work as quickly as possible, and they iterate rapidly before us.
I have a friend at work who appears to spend an impossible amount of time on self improvement activities. Upon closer inspection I found he simply completes his work as quickly as possible, then moves on to rapidly iterate through his next activity.
Feeling some inspiration I decided to speed read the first section of this book (360 pages) tonight so I’d have a more solid base for solving algorithm problems with more complicated data structures. While re-reading my How to speed read Text Book Articles I noticed another connected gem of wisdom. This “accelerated learning” technique doesn’t make you any smarter, it just burns down a task and prevents you from wasting your time perfecting a questionable activity.
If I haven’t already made it clear not messing around appears to be a great strategy for getting more out of life. Here are some practices of people who don’t mess around.
- Complete your work as quickly as possible
- Do things imperfectly, put them out there, and move forward
- Focus on getting to finished before strategizing about reaching 100%
Tonight I read 360 pages of a textbook, found a coach and set up an appointment for this week, and wrote this blog post. I hope I can be that guy for someone soon.