The eyes are scared, but the hands are doing.
If you come from a Russian-speaking country, you’ve probably heard the proverb “Глаза боятся, а руки делают”, which literally means “the eyes are scared, but the hands are doing”. It is a proverb that discourages procrastination and gives incentive to start doing the work before you have everything planned out to the T.
Yesterday was my first time of really feeling the meaning of this. I’ve been planning my social media content for a while now, and the tasks always look pretty daunting – especially everything to do with video. I really want to get into video making, and I definitely don’t suffer from lack of ideas! But so far, it has mostly been a pain. I procrastinate starting projects because “I want to film that, and the light situation isn’t the best now” – and even when I do film a few clips, I just never get to editing them! I avoid editing apps like the plague and stick to the parts I know how to do – write a script, for example.
Two days ago, I used this proverb for something my boyfriend did – he’s really great at implementing it! I often hear him talk about how unsure he is about his level of skill in his field, or how he has no idea how to even start a project. But to my surprise, it usually takes him less than 24 hours to complete the task or project in its entirety! It truly amazes me.
And so, yesterday I decided to “do the thing”, and I’ve filmed two short clips – one of me drawing Charmander, and the other of me preparing my bullet journal’s weekly spread. The drawing was a simple timelapse, while the journaling one made me sweat a bit while editing. I ended up posting both of them, and while not perfect – they are good enough for my inner critic.
I have always been saying that my main issue is not with generating ideas, nor is it with planning a roadmap – it is the implementation that gets me stuck every time. This is one of the main reasons I took up my challenges this year, and this is also why I’m employing the following rule, starting today:
Take Action Within 12 Hours
As simple as that. If I want to create something, I need to create the MVP of it the same day. I’ve seen many variations of this – from the two minute rule to the 24 hour rule – but I choose to make it 12 hours to avoid postponing things to the next morning. There is one other proverb that I always loved – “утро вечера мудренее”, translating to “the morning is wiser than the evening” – which implies that decisions and mental work are better done in the morning, with a fresh and well-rested mind. It’s not wrong, but I used it to justify postponing urgent work to the morning, and not being able to do it eventually. I think most of us tried to tell ourselves “I’ll wake up early tomorrow and get it done” and eventually overslept.
I think that this rule is a great addition to my yearly challenges, and I can’t wait to see what I can achieve by the end of the year with this toolset!
See you next week,
Anyuta.
