Before You Work Harder, Check Your Thinking

(Transcript edited for clarity.)

Hi, I'm Wes. Welcome to Before You Work Harder, Check Your Thinking. I also call this Most Problems Are Thinking Problems First.

This is Your Life Systems.

The question I'm going to start with today is: What needs to become clear in my thinking before I decide what to do?

I want you to think about that as we go over this today.

What needs to become clear in your thinking before you decide what to do?

In business, life, and success, so often we're taught, or we see others and think, "If I just work harder."

We're taught, "You've got to work harder. You just work harder."

Sometimes working harder works.

Let's think about digging a ditch.

You've got a shovel and you've got to dig a ditch.

The harder you work and the faster you shovel, the faster you'll get the ditch dug, right?

If you thought about it only one way, you'd think, "I've got a shovel. I've got to get this ditch dug. I've just got to work harder."

If the shovel is all you've got, that's probably the answer.

But what if you had access to something else?

Let's think this through.

Do you have anything else to dig with?

Do you have a backhoe?

A backhoe can dig the ditch a lot faster than a shovel.

Using a backhoe is thinking it through and working smarter instead of harder.

That's a simple example, but I think it's one most of us can understand.

If you have an option between a shovel and a backhoe, the backhoe is going to work better than you working harder with a shovel.

Don't get so focused that the only thing you see is the shovel and you can't see the backhoe.

Sometimes all you might have is a shovel.

Then, yes, you probably have to work harder.

But if you thought it through, this is about working smarter before working harder.

A lot of problems look like action problems.

It looks like, "I've got to work harder."

You think you need to work harder, move faster, get more disciplined, or find another tactic or strategy.

I love digging into strategies and tactics.

I love them.

Systems are strategies, right?

That's my life. I've based my life around systems.

I'm always looking for a better strategy.

But before the action problem, there's often a thinking problem.

It's either an unclear goal, a bad assumption, a weak question, or the wrong definition of the problem.

That's what I'm talking about when I say: Before you work harder, check your thinking.

Sometimes you do need to work harder, but sometimes you need to start asking the right question.

That's why I say most problems are thinking problems first.

I like to take action, and I talk about taking action all the time.

Figure out your best option and immediately take action.

Nothing happens before you take action.

Take action, then evaluate, then adjust.

All those things are true.

But if you train yourself to think things through and make sure it's not a thinking problem first, then the action is even more powerful.

Better execution cannot rescue a fundamentally wrong direction.

Let's say you need to get somewhere as fast as possible.

All you have is a car to get there.

You get in the car and want to get there as fast as possible.

If you're traveling in the wrong direction, no matter how fast you go, you're not going to get there very fast.

If where you want to go is south of you and you get in the car and head north, you're not going to get there very fast, if ever.

So you have to make sure you're heading in the right direction.

You have to think it through first.

You don't jump in the car and go as fast as you can.

You jump in the car, point it in the right direction - south in this example - and then go as fast as you can.

That's what I'm talking about.

It's a thinking problem first, then an action problem.

The thinking is: I've got to get in the car and head in the right direction.

Then you take action and go as fast as you can.

Clear thinking helps you see better options before spending time and energy.

If you jump in the car and head north, you're wasting time and energy when all you had to do was think it through and go south.

A few minutes of careful and useful thought can prevent hours of unnecessary action.

I wrote hours down so I'd remember it, but it's really not just hours.

Sometimes spending a few minutes thinking something through the right way can save days or weeks.

I've literally wasted days, and maybe even weeks, working on the wrong thing because I didn't think it through first.

I could have saved myself at least days by spending five minutes thinking about something to make sure I was right before I started taking action.

Here's an example from my life.

This wasn't really taking the incorrect action, but it shows where I saw this come into play: time management.

I've talked about time management and the time management systems I use in other episodes.

Those are good ones.

If you want time management advice or want to get better at time management, look up my episodes on how I actually use or organize my time.

Just look for time management on Your Life Systems and you'll find them.

That's where I really saw this come into play because I wanted to get more done.

I wanted to be successful, and I wanted to be successful faster.

My thought was, "I've got to better organize my time. I've got to become better at managing my time."

So I worked on that.

I studied all kinds of different time management systems.

What I eventually found was that my time management was really fine.

It needed a little help, but it wasn't the problem.

The problem was my priority management.

I wasn't working on and ranking my priorities in the correct order to make sure I worked on the most important priorities.

I didn't have a time management problem.

I had a priority management problem.

Once that clicked in my brain, everything fell into place.

I learned how to choose and rank the correct priorities and then plug them into the time system I use.

That made sure I was working on the most important priorities every single day.

That fixed my time management problem.

I was working on the wrong problem because I was working harder without thinking it through.

I hadn't gotten down to the root.

So start by defining the actual outcome you want to create.

Separate facts, assumptions, and interpretations.

Then ask whether you've created a false choice or defined the wrong problem.

See if you can ask a better question before looking for another tactic or working harder.

Stop working harder before you've thought it through.

Once your thinking is clear enough, then start working hard.

As I mentioned before, take action, evaluate, get feedback, and adjust.

But before you take massive action, or work harder in this case, think it through.

Thinking first doesn't mean thinking forever, though.

That's the danger.

You need to think it through, but once you've thought it through enough, you do need to take action.

The point I'm making in this episode is to stop working harder before thinking it through.

Think it through as quickly as you can, but take enough time to make sure you're going in the right direction.

Make sure you're not headed north when you're supposed to be headed south.

As soon as you've decided, "Yes, I need to head south," immediately take action.

Immediately start working harder.

Thinking is meant to improve action.

Overthinking delays action after you already have enough clarity, or the proper thought process, to start taking action.

So don't rush into action simply because action feels productive.

Rush into action after you've thought it through and made sure you're going in the right direction.

Thinking clearly helps you start in the right direction, and then that's when you stomp on the gas or work harder.

Better action almost always starts with better thinking.

So remember the question: What needs to become clear in your thinking before you decide what to do?

Make a list.

Look at everything you're having a challenge with or struggling with in your life, business, or anything else.

Look at goals you might be struggling with.

Look at problems you're trying to solve that aren't working as well as you'd like, or as fast as you'd like.

Look at anything where you keep saying, "I've just got to work harder."

Every time I've found myself saying, "I've just got to work harder," that's a clue for me to stop, take a step back, and say, "Do I really need to work harder, or do I need to think this through first?"

Usually, any sentence I start with "just," or that has a "just" at the beginning, makes me stop and think it through.

"Just" is like a trigger word for me now.

It tells me that if I think I just need to do something, I need to stop and ask, "Is that really true? Is that just what I need to do, or do I need to take a step back and think this through?"

Remember: Before you work harder, check your thinking.

Most problems are thinking problems first.

This is Your Life Systems.

Please like and subscribe.

I'll see you on the next episode.

What's Next?

·        Choose one problem where your current answer is simply to work harder.

·        Define the outcome you actually want in one clear sentence.

·        Separate the known facts from assumptions and interpretations.

·        Ask whether you're working on the right problem or only the most visible one.

·        Look for a better question before adding another tactic.

·        Once the direction is clear enough, act quickly, get feedback, and adjust.

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