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Prepare Thoroughly before You Begin

No matter what the level of your ability, you have more potential than you can ever develop in a lifetime.

JAMES T. MCCAY

One of the best ways for you to overcome procrastination and stress is to have everything you need at hand before you begin. When you are fully prepared, you are like an archer with an arrow pulled back taut in the bow. You will be amazed at what you achieve in the months and years ahead. You just need one small mental push to get started.

Proper preparation is like getting everything ready to prepare a complete meal. You set all the ingredients out on the counter in front of you and then begin putting the meal together, one step at a time.

Begin by clearing off your desk or workspace so that you have only one task in front of you. If necessary, put everything else on the floor or somewhere else in your room—as long as it is out of sight.

Gather all the information, the textbook, research, notes from class, or other materials that you will require to complete the job. Have them at hand so you can reach them without getting up or moving around. If some of these are digital, close down all computer programs that are not essential to your task and open only the documents or programs you need to do your assignment. Be sure that you have all the writing materials, login information, access codes, email addresses, and everything else you need to start working and continue working until the job is done.

Set up your work area so that it is comfortable, attractive, and conducive to working for long periods. Especially, make sure that you have a comfortable chair that supports your back and allows your feet to rest flat on the floor.

Optimize Your Workspace

The most productive people take the time to create a work area where they enjoy spending time. The cleaner and neater your work area is before you begin, the easier it will be for you to get started and keep going.

When everything is laid out neatly and in sequence, you will feel much more like getting on with the job. A clear, organized workspace will eliminate mental noise and nagging worries and will go a long way to reducing the stress you feel when trying to work on your assignments, musical instrument practice, or college or job ap plications.

It is amazing how many books never get written, how many degrees never get completed, how many life-changing tasks never get started because people fail to take the first step of preparing everything in advance.

Tackle Your Frog

Once you have completed your preparations, it is essential that you launch immediately toward your goals. Get started. Do the first thing, whatever it is.

My personal rule is “Get it 80 percent right and then correct it later.” Run it up the flagpole and see if anyone salutes. Don’t expect perfection the first time or even the first few times. Be prepared to fail over and over before you get it right.

One unfortunate consequence of learning in a high-stress environment is a tendency toward perfectionism. A very old saying is “perfection is the enemy of the good,” which basically means that if you try to be perfect, you may never produce anything at all.

Preparation and planning are essential in combatting perfectionism: you do not want to turn in an assignment you think might not pass muster, and for a test you have only one chance to get it right. You need to build in time to do an assignment all the way through imperfectly and then go back and see how to improve it. Make sure to get it 80 percent done several days before the final assignment is due, or be able to answer 80 percent of the questions on your test study guide several days in advance. Then take those final days to refine and improve your work or studies until you know you have prepared enough to do well.

Wayne Gretzky, the great hockey player, once said, “You miss 100 percent of the shots you don’t take.” Once you have completed your preparations, have the courage to take the first action, and everything else will follow from that. The way you develop the courage you need is to act as if you already had the courage and behave accordingly.

Take the First Step

When you sit down with everything in front of you, ready to go, assume the body language of high performance. Sit up straight; sit forward and away from the back of the chair. Carry yourself as though you were an efficient, effective, high-performing personality. Then, pick up the first item and say to yourself, “Let’s get to work!” and plunge in. And once you’ve started, keep going until the task is finished.