Don’t Rethink: The Foundations of Productivity

If you were doing laundry, would you wash the clean clothes a second time? Of course not. It would be a waste of time and energy. The same rule applies to productivity as well.

Productivity requires a solid foundation if the methods are going to be successful. Just like every building must have a solid foundation if it is going to remain standing, productivity must also have a solid foundation unless you want it to crumble underneath you.

We are in a ten-article series on the foundations of productivity. Today we will look at a fundamental rule: Don’t Rethink.

Why Rethinking Is Bad

Just as re-washing clean clothes is pointless, re-thinking about anything is pointless as well.

This is not to say that considering an issue with more or new information is bad. What it means is to have the same thoughts more than once, with no change, is the same as re-washing clothes as soon as they are clean.

Rethinking is just a waste of brain cycles.

A Rethinking Example

Let’s say that you are in the bathroom in the morning and notice you are getting low on shampoo. “I need to remember to get more shampoo,” you think. This is a good thing. With that reminder, you are putting it into your memory for processing.

But you don’t write it down. So as you are walking into work you notice someone’s wet hair and you think, “I need to remember to get more shampoo.” As you are waiting for lunch, you are perusing a magazine and think it again. As you are watching telelvision that night you see an ad and think it again. Now if you persist in not writing it on a shopping list, the thought will pop up at random times, like during a presentation you are giving, or during your morning exercise.

Multiple additional brain cycles that didn’t get you any closer to getting the shampoo. All it did was waste your time and energy reminding you of something you already knew, but your brain also knew you would forget.

Now multiply that by the dozens of things you tell yourself you need to remember every day. It all adds up to distraction and fractured concentration.

The Two Rules to Break Rethinking

Luckily, it is easy to get out of this pattern of thinking. Two rules is all it takes, but you have to do them consistently.

Rule #1: Get Everything Out Of Your Mind

In order to stop the rethinking where it starts, you need to get those random thoughts out of your mind. And I don’t mean just to push them off, but to put them in a place where you will be able to recall them when you need them.

David Allen calls these “trusted systems” — putting them where they will be processed into the appropriate place later — but I am a fan of putting things where they need to go immediately. So instead of writing down “buy shampoo” on a to-do list, I would put it into the shopping list so I would know it is there when I am shopping.

In order to make this work, you have to have your various bits with you pretty much all the time. This means taking advantage of the wonderful amount of technology at our finger tips. (Think, “Hey Siri, remind me to buy shampoo #shopping”) If you don’t have it with you, then you need to have one place where you put all these things, and commit to entering them into the right places as soon as you can.

Rule #2: Don’t Break Your Promises To Your Mind

The second rule is the most crucial. Once you have started to put things in a place where you will find them when you need them, you can’t backslide. Your brain has to trust that things will be put where they need to be, or it won’t trust you, and will continue to remind you of the things. (More on this below).

If you tell yourself you will write or record or somehow capture all these thoughts, then you must consistently do it, and have backup systems in place that are just as reliable for when you can’t put things where they need to go. No “I’ll do it later” or “I’m sure I’ll remember this later” or “It’s such a little thing…”

Getting Yourself Out of the Rethinking Habit

Rethinking is a habit that is brought on by not putting things into the places they need to go. And because it is a habit, it can be replaced with something else.

For the first few days (or weeks, depending on how deeply entrenched you are in this habit), you will need to make sure you put everything into the proper place…and when the thought resurfaces, remind yourself you have already taken care of it.

Eventually it will stop when your brain begins to trust the new way of doing things.

Conclusion

If you get everything out of your mind and make sure you are consistent, you will drop your rethinking to almost nothing. That will free up your brain cycles for much more productive things!