Just Open the Dang Laptop

So at the moment, I am overwhelmed by the number of things I need to learn.  In the past few months, I've switched into a DevOps role which is pretty much a new career for me.

As a developer, I'm used to needing to train up on things to stay current, but this is different.  This is training to get a foundation.  The work is rewarding, but the amount of study I feel I need is truly overwhelming.  I know if I did 2 hours of training tonight it would barely make a dent.  This has led to a bit of procrastination on my part.  I'm not sure if it is paralysis by analysis or what.  I just know I'm not moving forward as fast as I want.

Of course, I know that it's not any one of these hours that makes the difference, but the collection of all of them that will have an impact.  Just as I know that working on this one blog post won't make me a prolific writer.

I'm sick of having this fight with myself so I'm trying out something new to get in a habit of productivity.

So I can't remember where I heard this, but the idea is that if you want to start flossing your teeth you don't set the goal of flossing your teeth, but rather set the goal of flossing one tooth.  It's too small of a task for you to shirk it (unlike flossing all your teeth).  So on a similar note, I've set the goal to "Just Open the Dang Laptop" I don't have any goal of writing a blog post or taking a training course.  Just open the laptop.

I'm hoping this process of creating a habit by making the goal trivially small will pay off.  Check out this FastCompany article on a similar note.

As I start writing this post it is actually day two of having this goal.  On day one I didn't even open the laptop.  I chickened out.  Day two rolled around and I figured I had better crack it open.

I will most likely not be posting to this blog every day, but hopefully, I'll get more going since I'll at least have this screen in front of me more often.