Do It Now

If you’re anything like me, you’ve got some things that you want to achieve. Maybe you want to get your finances in order, learn to invest, or start a small business.

So you do some research, and along the way you come across a slew of great ideas. You dig into one of the ideas, and find even MORE great ideas.

Pretty soon you’ve got a list a mile long of things that you’re meaning to check out. Your bookmark list scrolls off the screen, sticky notes are breeding, and there’s a stack of books on your desk. There just isn’t time to learn everything you want to learn.

So don’t.

If you’ve been doing research for longer than a week or two, stop. You’ve probably got enough information to do something useful instead, so go ahead and do it. Do it now.

Grab ONE of the books or plans that speaks to you and seems decent. Spend another day or two making sure it’s not a scam. Then follow ALL of the directions. Really, all of them.

As for the rest of the books and plans? Just toss them. In a box, if you’ve spent a lot of money on them. In the trash or the donation bin otherwise. If you’ve come to the complete end of a plan and it hasn’t worked, there will be plenty of other things for you to try.

While you’re at it, toss aside the things that aren’t relevant right now. Quit bookmarking articles and videos you want to come back to. Quit surfing from idea to idea. (Yeah, I’m talking to myself here.)

The point is, you don’t have to be an expert to get started or to reach your goals. What you do have to be is a person who takes action and keeps going, learning along the way.

What would you like to be doing that you either haven’t started yet or haven’t made as much progress as you’d like on? Is it learning to invest, getting out of debt, starting a garden, or something else?

8 comments

  • I need to figure out how to back up my blog on a regular basis (preferably automatically) and how to back up my PC’s too since all my digital photos and some of hubby’s grad school stuff is on them. The trick is finding a way to back up all of this well for as little money as possible. Wish me luck!

  • Budgeting, just popping in here for a second while on a break. I use WordPress Database Backup (http://www.ilfilosofo.com/blog/wp-db-backup) to do my automatic backups, and Mozy (see my Resources section) for PC backups. Both free :)

  • I really want to get into programming web applications. I’ve really wanted to for a long time and even bought some books to learn it but I keep getting bored and quit.
    One of these days I’ll take the time to be bored and actually do it.

    What I did finally jump into was blogging. I used to read all sorts of articles and how-to’s. About a month ago I just bought a domain name and jumped into it. If I didn’t just jump I would still be reading. Jumping in really does get you moving.
    Great post.

    • Kevin, is there a particular kind of web application you want to create? Maybe that would help with the boredom aspect.

      Good job on jumping in on the blogging :)

  • Great post! And Agreed! you have to stop dilly dalling and put the pedal to the metal. LOL. Now, if I could just stop checking every few seconds on my social media stuff and just continue to put my fingers to the keyboard and get the eBook finished!

    And I think in a way, we fear taking a step back or in a different direction. I fear to stop twittering so much as a possibility of losing followers. Yet, if I take that step back to finish working on pending applications, I can end up with a bigger future. I hope that made sense. ;-)

    Just gotta take the step forward.

    • So, wanna be ebook/product partners? (Guess I should say one of the things I want to be doing that I haven’t achieved yet too.)

  • I recently bought a box of books from a yard sale about how to make money online and how to start a small home business for only $5 for the entire box. When I got home and searched to see more about the books I learned that the books together cost over $800.

    Just seeing this was a shock. I didn’t think people would actually give away stuff like this.

    • They probably didn’t think anyone would buy them, because why would they be selling them if they worked? (Or so the theory might go…)