Have you ever put off a decision for so long that the choice was made for you?
I’ve done that a million times, and I have a feeling that you have too. If you’re putting something off, it’s because it’s difficult, scary, or in some way undesirable. We humans are absolute masters of avoiding things we don’t like. We’ve got that particular skill down to a science.
The trouble… is that it usually fucks us over royally.
Here’s a great example: I’ve spent the last few days moving Unfinished Man over to a brand new server. It’s less than half the cost, which will save our little team thousands a year, and it’s actually faster than the old server because of some aggressive optimizations I’ve put together using APC, Nginx, and minification. If you’re interested, ask me about it.
The whole experience has been stressful and tiring, but I’m finally finished and I feel great. So why didn’t I do this before? Simple, I’ve been stalling… for a year.
Why? Because I knew it would be a time consuming challenge.
And does that make any sense? Yes, absolutely, but that really wasn’t a good enough reason not to do it. Had I done this when I first started thinking about it, I could have “pulled the bandaid off” and saved the lot of us thousands of dollars. Instead I was a big baby about the whole thing and kept putting it off.
The funny thing is that doing this was actually beneficial in other ways. Through my struggle, I learned a lot about Linux, servers, and optimizing said linux servers. This translated into a 50% reduction in page load speeds, which is good for everyone.
But I’m not here to brag. I tell you this story with the hopes that you’ll take my failing to heart and not make the same mistake yourself.
Everyone has something (probably a lot of somethings, actually) that they don’t want to do, but I promise you, in every case you only hurt yourself by stalling. Whether it’s finally canceling that credit card you haven’t used in years, or getting rid of the last bits of junk in that $100/month storage locker, waiting only means more pain, and often expense.
Next time you’re dreading something, don’t give yourself time to hesitate and just do it already. It’s better to do a thing than to live with the fear of it.
(Photo by jmehre)
