mobcode

“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”.

Web app in the works

Instead of blogging I have been spending time working on a web app. It is meant to help people coding on the web. More details as we get closer to launch.

You are running a business

If you are coding for hire on the web then you are running your own business. All of those “soft” business areas are now your responsibility. You need to be your own marketing department, sales, accounting, research & development, billing, collections. You need to do your own competitive analysis. You have to be a support team for the slop you write.

Perhaps you have a preference for the technical side and want to stick to coding. That is not an option. Since you are coding on the web you are running a business. The only question is: how well will you run it?

Fires kill productivity

In order to be productive you need a short list of things to focus on. When you focus on an item you get it done.

Fires are the urgent items that pop-up throughout the day and demand immediate attention. These urgent issues kill productivity. They kill productivity because their urgency encourages us to take on too many tasks. Their urgency almost forces us to multi-task. And multi-tasking kills productivity.

So my question is, why do fire houses always appear so neat and orderly? If firemen are always fighting fires then how do they have the time and discipline to keep their trucks washed and everything put perfectly in its place?