Less Learning, More Doing: An Antidote to Inaction
Welcome to the 1,325 people who've joined Think Forward. This newsletter is released every Thursday, focusing on personal development inside and out of the office. Today's article will take ~4 minutes to read.
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Today, we will look at the relationship between information and action in our lives. Internet circles, and business websites, love to talk about how information and being a continual learner leads to success––but they do one thing very wrong.
Most articles/advice leans toward reading books to become a better version of yourself. Although I agree books?can?help you improve, they are only part of the equation.
The missing link: action.
Information leads to action, action leads to lived experience, and experience leads to wisdom. That is what we're all after.
But many of us keep repeating step one, 'information', until we're blue in the face.
Why?
It comes down to a couple of things. First, when we learn but do not take action, we can hide behind statements like, "It has to be perfect before I launch" or "I'm an ideas person."
I call bullshit.
Anyone who doesn't take information and turn it into action is (i) scared of judgment or (ii) lazy. I can't help those in camp two, but I can for those in camp one, I suggest reading my earlier article,?They Don't Make Statues out of Critics.?
How did we get here? Let's look at it.
Information Overload
There are roughly two million books published per year. This massive number, combined with endless articles with titles like "CEOs read 75 books a month," fuels the fire of self-doubt.
The biggest vanity metric in personal development is the number of books you have read. But nobody cares, and it doesn't make a difference in the grand scheme of your life.
We're conditioned to think that reading = productivity. It does not. Taking action also does not equal productivity. However, taking informed action is the key to getting anything done.
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Books can be helpful, but without lived experience, they are merely kindling without firewood.
The Action/Information Paradox
The more information people get about a topic in wealth, health, or love, the less likely they are to take action. For example, how often have you opened up Excel and made a budget, then never looked at or adhered to it?
I'm going to bet more than once.
We need to prioritize both (i) simplicity and (ii) action. Every successful person I've been around tends to do 1-3 things well. They do it by following the KISS (Keep it Simple Stupid) principle combined with consistent output.
Here is the formula to show the relationship between knowledge and action:
Bias for action
This is one of the leadership principles at Amazon and something we can apply in our lives/careers. Have a bias for action, or as Amazon states the principle, "Speed matters in business. Many decisions and actions are reversible and do not need extensive study. We value calculated risk-taking."
I love this principle, and one part of Amazon's statement jumps out to me, "Many decisions and actions are reversible," which is valid for almost every decision we make. Very rarely is a decision completely irreversible. So by taking the risk, making the decision, and having a bias for action, we can see how things shake out in real life instead of endlessly theorizing about outcomes.
Deliberate Learning
You need to seek out explicit knowledge in your learning. Otherwise, it's not learning; it's a hobby. If you want to become an entrepreneur, you should (i) read up on how to start a business, (ii) listen to interviews/podcasts/etc. from others you admire or want to emulate. At the same time as that is happening, you should be incorporating a company, setting up a website, and working on your product. You will learn both from learning materials but also by doing.
Combining deliberate learning with a bias for action is a superpower.
Cheers,
Jordan
I like building, creating, and marketing.
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