What do you have on your goals list that you want to do but keep putting off? Last month I finally started one of mine. A little social accountability and an arbitrary deadline was all I needed to kill the resistance of procrastination and perfectionism.

For me, I have wanted to do a bunch of stuff with this site you are reading, the first one being to create a logo along with weaving in a bunch of other design changes for months now as part of a bigger desire/goal to get back into graphic design and digital art. My motivations for this were sound. One reason you procrastinate on something is because you don’t really want/need to do it, but that didn’t apply here.

This kept coming up as something I needed to do but I didn’t know where to start. The goal seemed too big.

“Parkinson’s Law says that work expands so as to fill the time available for its completion.”

Wikipedia

Just creating a logo was supposed to have required me to get up to speed on new tools (it had been a while since I had done any serious vector art) by learning Affinity Designer (or Adobe Illustrator or Procreate or [insert tool here]) which would certainly require a few hours to go through some videos and tutorials. I needed to do more research on which tool to use, where to find the best tutorials, etc.

Then, last month, I finally started! 🔥

I started because I a) made my task very specific and b) gave myself a short timeframe to do it. I said I was going to create a logo in less than 30 days in my amplify and reduce goals and in actuality, I did it in just a week (or less).

I had to use what I knew because I didn’t have extra time…

I had to use what I had because I didn’t have extra time….

I published the thing and now am starting on the next thing.

It’s not perfect, but, I didn’t have anything to show for the past 12 months and now I do. I’m happy with that.

Try this technique next time you are stuck on something you know you really want to do.