Bias for action

The ability to just do things is a rare quality in 2025 especially with all the distractions surrounding us in this digital age of social media addiction. Avoiding the work that you need to do to make it to the next level and substituting it for extremely small dopamine hits at regular intervals is the new normal for a young adult.

The constant scrolling on instagram or twitter just to be able to ick out that last second of dopamine has got us hooked. I always come back to the quote that states “if its free then probably you are the consumer”.

I found myself in that rut probably after I joined my full time job at the end of 2023. The struggle and hard work during my grad days was replaced by something a bit more mundane and stable at my workplace. I found myself substituting that with a less harder things that satisfied my dopamine hit. Fast forward a couple of months and even reading a wiki that was moderately hard became an absolute nightmare, meaning the things that needed to get done were getting put on the back burner.

At that point i realized i need to develop a bias for action, or put simply just doing things. I came up with a few points that i will share with you that helped me get out of that rut of inaction

• If it takes less than 15 minutes to accomplish something do it now. Things like ordering stuff on amazon, filling out an important document, applying for a drivers license etc. The boring things that we tend to procrastinate come in this list that could get done in small blocks of allocated time.

• Then I started with things that are the highest priority, things that if not done would have dire consequences over a long period of time. The tasks that got assigned to me at work. Filing taxes, ensuring all the bills etc are paid on time. These are the kind of things that need to get done regardless and require the most amount of time and focus.

• Then I started taking decisions that would not have long term consequences a bit faster. Not sure what table to order. ChatGPT it, pick the top 2 and go with one, we can return it later if we do not like it. Write that new blog, as if no one is reading, we can refine it later. These activities are those which require some sort of decision making which we either postpone due to lack of knowledge to take that decision or just the sheer number of options. If its the later then read the next bullet point.

• For the deicions that need more evidence or data poitns, I tend to put it down in my todo list and then come up with a set of points that I need to take that decision and then i go back to point 1 of this post and work my way down until i either end up with the task done or a set of data points that i need to gather and work on.

I hope this blog helped and feel free to leave any comments about the techniques you learnt or use that help you to take action faster.