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“Barriers to entry” and getting things done

I will mis-use the phrase “barriers to entry” to talk about how people keep themselves from getting things done.

You have some work that needs to be done. You are not particularly motivated to do it. You create an imposing mental barrier to doing the work. However, the barrier is all mental. You tell yourself:

• you don’t feel like doing it

• it will take too long

• it will be drudgery

• you don’t know how to do it

You have created a high mental barrier that you need to get over in order to start working on the items.

The key is that it is a mental barrier of your own creation in your head. You have amplified the height and burden of the barrier in your own mind. Once you get over it, you will see that it was a small bump in the road, not a major barrier at all. Once you step past your artifical mental barrier, you get immersed in the work, your motivation goes up, you look around and see what needs to be done, you start doing it, you see some succes, your motivation goes up, you get in the “flow” and before you know it the item is done.

Context switching makes this effect much worse. In the worst case, you context switch so much that you never have time to get over the barrier on any tasks. Your just sitting there in a lonely pit surrounded by barriers you can never get over.

The solution is to foster the discipline in yourself of forcing yourself over these barriers repeatedly. Do this every day, many times a day, and then look back on your path and see a solid record of accomplishments. Accomplishments that were achieved by barreling through the mental “barriers to entry”.