Bias towards actions

When it comes to time, it is worth making mistakes in that time than to stay stagnant with the hope of making a perfect decision. Start small and trust that things will evolve the way you can’t imagine right now. ¹

Tejas

We’re all biased. Some more than others in various aspects of our lives. I think that’s where our preferences and individual uniqueness comes from.

And I am proposing an adoption of such new bias. Bias towards actions — counter to spending time on deciding the next perfect thing to do.

Before I continue, I want to clarify what I am NOT saying.

I am not saying:

1. You should stop spending time to plan and bring clarity to your decision making process
2. You should start doing things without thinking

Problem

Some of us, who deal with perfection paralysis, we often get stuck on decision making process for far too long without a strong valid reason. We often think that the decision that we are going to take has to be perfect, flawless and that’s why we take our time. We try to gather more data, we ask opinions of others.

That’s all good and there is value in that. But not all decisions require such careful analysis. Some decisions have no perfection to them. Recognizing that can save you so much time and metal energy.

Decisions like:

1. Should I pick topic A or topic B for my next blog post?
2. Should learn this technology or that technology next?
3. Should I start working on personal project A or B? etc,.

Arguably these questions may have perfect answers based on your specific case. However, if these/similar decisions are taking your mental energy more than necessary, then even if you do find perfect answer eventually, its not worth the effort. This is where Bias towards actions becomes important.

Next time when you find yourself in such decision making process, remember this post and remember to not invest more energy than necessary.

So, what does Bias towards action looks like?

Commit to start working within next 5 minutes with your decision.

Meaning, you should make that decision AND start taking action based on that decision within next 5 minutes.

The principle is, your action has higher priority than the decision itself. That’s Bias towards action.

Why’d want to do that?

I hear you say this is irrational, unrealistic. But I hope to convince you otherwise and show you how this is very practical.

I am going to assume you know the importance of time.

If you are familiar with perfection paralysis, you know how much time that can eat away.

When it comes to time, it’s worth making mistakes in that time than to stay stagnant with a hope of making a perfect decision of what to do — That’s what it comes down to.

Recognize that — you are mostly stagnant during the decision making process. Even with a bad decision, you prove that it’s a bad decision and then you switch to alternative, that could again be good or bad decision and if you are lucky, it turns out to be a good decision. But some decisions have no perfection to them and in those cases, you save yourself most valuable resource, time.

Actions are peculiar. Actions involve our mind and emotions into something. Such a level involvement is hard to come with just thoughts/thinking. With such involvement, we see things with greater clarity than with just thoughts.

Actions allow us to make mistakes quickly. Every mistake teaches us something. With that actions become powerful source of knowledge. That’s why people who make rash decisions get more experience and exposure to various things. That doesn’t mean we need to be rash in our decisions. We do need to be rational, careful but we also need to start recognizing when we do not have to be rational and careful. We need to recognize that not all choices can be perfect.

With such involvement and clarify, you start to see more opportunities than you did before. This often so overlooked, people just don’t understand the power of just trying things out. When you start something, it evolves. It becomes something else as time progresses because of that new clarity that you find with performing action.

Example:

Research how these things started and how they evolved over time

1. Amazon
2. Paypal
3. Linux
4. Git version control
5. VueJS project

..and so many other examples. It seems to me that, this is just the most natural way things grow.

Trust that what you don’t know now, you will know. If you find value, if you find something that sparks your interest, however small, pursue it. Don’t try to find the best thing you can do. Just start with where your interest lies now and trust that it evolves over time or it brings you other opportunities that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise.

When to be biased towards action

Analyse and see if you are stuck with a decision and it’s going no where.

These questions may help you do that:

1. Are you trying to make or come up with a perfect decision?
2. Does this decision really requires so much mental energy and time?
3. Is it worth looking for perfect answer?
4. Whats the consequence of not having perfect decision?

Side effects

There is other side for this coin.

Some people have a natural bias towards action, it could be very problematic too. If you are reading this, don’t let me validate your problems. You need to find balance.

With that said, all biases are problematic at some point. So is Bias towards action.

If you over do it, you might make rash decisions. Don’t do that. Make sure your situation is applicable.

---

Footnotes

1. I don’t know if I should quote myself in my blog post like that, but what the hell. Lol. ↩