We’ve reached a point in human history where the information available to us has reached the highest it has ever been, and it continues to grow exponentially. This has made life extremely complicated. There is a lot of information to absorb and that requires a great deal of mental digestion before we can make sense of it.
One of the main obstacles to productivity is shifting our focus from using the information we have available to us to processing that information.
We get caught up trying to gain more knowledge, analyze what we’ve gained, processing what we know, planning what to do, re-defining how to present the information, etc, etc, etc. We continuously process and re-process information, without deciding how we’ll use this information.
This is especially damaging when the thinking is done in preparation for a task, or as part of a project. It makes an obvious appearance as Chronic To-Do Listing (I haven’t thought of a funkier name for it). This is when you get caught up writing to-do lists, but never doing any of the tasks on the list (I fall into this trap quite often that I’m thinking of naming this disease after me 😛 I’ll put that on my to-do list!).
You write the to-do list to clarify your thoughts on what you need to get done. But once these thoughts are clarified, you haven’t directed your focus towards doing the work. As though clarifying your thinking is an end unto itself.
“If you can think – and not make thoughts your aim”
From “If” by Rudyard Kipling
The reason why we, as humans, have the ability to sense the environment around us, and to develop an understanding of it, is not to simply make observations, but to know how to behave, based on what we know.
To become more productive, we need to shift our focus from thinking to doing. In other words, we need an Action Orientation. This doesn’t mean that we don’t do any thinking. In fact, we can do a great deal of thinking. But we should always attach to our thinking the question: “How will I use this information?”
And then acting on the answer.