Latest / DevQuestions with Tim Corey / 161 How Do I Deal with Overthinking?

Transcript

161 How Do I Deal with Overthinking? · DevQuestions with Tim Corey

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_01: Welcome to the Dev Questions Podcast with Tim Corey.
• 0:03
  SPEAKER_01: Join us each episode as we tackle the questions you are asking about a career in software development, understanding the industry, and new technology.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_01: If you're just starting out or you want to grow stronger as a developer, this is the place to get your questions answered.
• 0:19
  SPEAKER_01: Now, here's your host, expert developer and online educator, Tim Corey.
• 0:26
  SPEAKER_00: How do I deal with overthinking?
• 0:28
  SPEAKER_00: How do you get past the analysis paralysis?
• 0:31
  SPEAKER_00: This is a great question that came from a suggestion site recently, and I want to answer on today's episode of DevQuestions.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you have a question that you want to get answered, go to suggestions.iamtimcorey.com and leave your question there.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_00: Hopefully you'll see your question answered on a future episode of DevQuestions.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_00: Now, getting over analysis paralysis, the idea that you overthink the problem or you overthink the potential solutions.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: You spend all your time researching and finding new things and trying things out and learning new techniques and you're never really sure what I should do, that can be really hard to overcome.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_00: So I have six techniques because this is something that I have struggled with.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: There's once you get so much knowledge, it actually makes it harder, not easier.
• 1:21
  SPEAKER_00: You know, if you only know one database, you only know one database exists, exists.
• 1:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well then guess which database you're gonna use?
• 1:30
  SPEAKER_00: That database.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: But when you have 12 that you know of, and 12 you've tried before, which one do you choose?
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_00: Oh no, you're gonna spend all your time working through which way do I go, this way or that way.
• 1:42
  SPEAKER_00: There's six ways you can help make this decision easier.
• 1:48
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk through them.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_00: Number one, practice.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_00: Practice making decisions.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_00: This is an important part of just about anything, but the more you get used to just making a decision, the better.
• 2:04
  SPEAKER_00: Try with things that don't matter.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_00: Okay.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_00: So let's say you're driving home from a baseball game and it's late and you haven't had food yet, you're gonna grab some fast food.
• 2:17
  SPEAKER_00: Which place do you go?
• 2:19
  SPEAKER_00: Do you want to go to McDonald's, Burger King, or Taco Bell?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_00: That's not an important decision, right?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: But often we we talk about it, we think about it, we we plan, just choose.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_00: Just say, I'm gonna do this.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_00: Practice that, okay?
• 2:34
  SPEAKER_00: With other decisions that don't really matter that much.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, am I going to go for a run or a bike ride?
• 2:42
  SPEAKER_00: Just choose.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: Work on that and say, you know what, I'm just gonna choose.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_00: And maybe even practice the idea of I'm gonna flip a coin and just do that.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_00: And but work on practicing making decisions when you have different choices that aren't really necessarily a big impact overall.
• 3:01
  SPEAKER_00: Make the decision which one should I do by being quick about it and saying, you know what, I'm just going to do this and then stick with it.
• 3:10
  SPEAKER_00: So that practice will help you, as you get to bigger decisions, be able to more quickly make decisions and not get so stuck.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: But okay, that's good to say, right?
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: But at some point you have to figure out, well, how to make the right decision.
• 3:26
  SPEAKER_00: So just practicing making decisions, what if I make the wrong one?
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: All right.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: So let's talk through the other ways that we can we can help make these decisions easier.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: So number two, establish a time frame for a decision.
• 3:41
  SPEAKER_00: If it's a if it's a small decision, let's say you're a team meeting and you're figuring out do you want to have the red tablecloth or the blue tablecloth?
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_00: Maybe we're gonna have a booth for you know some kind of trade show.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_00: And you're gonna have a tablecloth on your table.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_00: Should be red or should be blue.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's a small decision.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_00: So you say, you know what, we're gonna spend five minutes.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: At the end of five minutes, we will make a decision.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: But some things are a little bigger.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_00: Choosing a database, that's a bigger decision.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: So say, you know what?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_00: I'm gonna spend three days.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_00: That's my time frame.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_00: Three days that I can spend looking at different options, making choices, figuring out which ones are best, practicing things, trying out different databases.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: But at the end of three days, I'm going to make a decision.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: So you kind of release yourself to not feel bad taking time, but at the same time, you give yourself that end date where you say, you know what, I'm not going beyond Wednesday.
• 4:48
  SPEAKER_00: So you know I have to start making a decision.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: It kind of forces you into that, okay, this one.
• 4:55
  SPEAKER_00: And you make that choice.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so establish a time frame for your decision.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: The bigger the decision, the larger the time frame, but don't make them very large.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_00: Don't make them years.
• 5:07
  SPEAKER_00: Make them small enough that you can do some work, make sure that you can make wise decisions in there, but at the same time, make them small enough so that at the end of it that you can make a choice and move forward with it.
• 5:23
  SPEAKER_00: Now, number three comes when you've made a decision.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_00: Stick with it.
• 5:28
  SPEAKER_00: This is one of the things that people often do is they make the decision and they start looking back over their shoulder.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_00: They say, okay, I'm gonna choose SQL Server.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And they start putting code in a SQL Server, they start putting data in a SQL Server, and they go, oh, but you know, Mongo does some cool things, or Cosmos DB has this neat feature.
• 5:49
  SPEAKER_00: Stop.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: You've made the decision.
• 5:52
  SPEAKER_00: Stick with it.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: Even if you say, oh, but if I had known this, it's too late.
• 5:59
  SPEAKER_00: You've made the decision.
• 6:01
  SPEAKER_00: Move forward.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_00: You are not going to, in almost any circumstance, you are not going to sink yourself by sticking with your decision.
• 6:11
  SPEAKER_00: But in most cases, in a lot of cases at least, if you start going back on your decisions and putting different things in place, you will sink your project.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_00: You will sink some important deadlines.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Because that redo, that restart wastes all that time that you spent.
• 6:33
  SPEAKER_00: So stick with your decision, because now that's a feature too.
• 6:39
  SPEAKER_00: So you chose based off features or based upon systems or processes or whatever it was that was the most attractive.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: You chose the most attractive one for you.
• 6:48
  SPEAKER_00: You chose SQL Server because that's the most attractive for your particular situation.
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_00: Well, now that you've started to work on it, there's the fact that all these attractive things that originally brought you to it, but also all the time you've now invested in it.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_00: Now, yes, there's a sunk cost fallacy and all the rest.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: If it's just not going to work, abandon ship.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_00: But unless it's absolutely not going to work, stick with it.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: Number four.
• 7:18
  SPEAKER_00: This is a mental thing, but acknowledge that no decision is perfect.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: That's one of the things that people try to get is what's the perfect choice?
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_00: What's the right choice?
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_00: No decision is perfect.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: So if you acknowledge that, if you let yourself believe that, that no matter what decision you make, it won't be perfect.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_00: Then it's okay, there's some flaws to it.
• 7:45
  SPEAKER_00: But it you made your best choice possible.
• 7:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so acknowledge there's no perfect decision, which allows you to be more relaxed about it, to not worry about it, but to say, you know what?
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I made the right choice because it was based on the information I had.
• 8:02
  SPEAKER_00: This is the decision I made.
• 8:04
  SPEAKER_00: And it's not gonna be perfect, but it was the best I could do.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Number five, make a better choice for next time, not this time.
• 8:16
  SPEAKER_00: So you're gonna find out, oh, it was a flaw.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Oh, I didn't know about cool, write it down, keep a note of it, not for this time.
• 8:25
  SPEAKER_00: Okay?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: Don't beat yourself up about this time.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: Learn for next time.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because what you get to do is say, you know what?
• 8:34
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't know that when I made the choice.
• 8:37
  SPEAKER_00: And yeah, it would have been great to know that back then, but I didn't.
• 8:41
  SPEAKER_00: And I can't change the fact that I didn't know that.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: I can't change the fact that we've gone this direction.
• 8:48
  SPEAKER_00: So I made the best choice I could under the circumstances.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_00: Next time I'll make an even better choice.
• 8:55
  SPEAKER_00: That way it allows you to relax, allows you to grow for next time, and allows you not to get overly anxious about the choice you've made.
• 9:04
  SPEAKER_00: And then number six, celebrate your successes.
• 9:09
  SPEAKER_00: Celebrate when that thing launches, when the database is up and running.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: Celebrate it.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: You will spot all the flaws.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: You will know all the problems.
• 9:20
  SPEAKER_00: You will say, oh, but you know what?
• 9:21
  SPEAKER_00: It probably could have been done half the in half the time if I had just done this.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_00: Don't focus on the flaws.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: Focus on the success.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know what?
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: If you had spent twice the time making the decision, it wouldn't be done now.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_00: And you don't know what flaws you would have found going the other route.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_00: But what you do know is you're currently successful.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_00: It's currently running, it's currently working.
• 9:46
  SPEAKER_00: You've you are able to get something in place.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: Celebrate that success.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_00: If you focus on the success rather than on the failure, you will be much more confident going forward in the future.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_00: So those are the kind of six techniques that I work through when looking at a project where I need to analyze something, figure out the best choice.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_00: Because honestly, when we think about best, we equate best with perfect, and those are not the same thing.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_00: You gotta let go of perfect and figure out what the best choice is based upon what you know.
• 10:24
  SPEAKER_00: And so these six techniques of practice, establishing a time frame for the decision, sticking with your decision, acknowledging there's no perfect decision, making a better choice for next time, not this time, and celebrating the success will really help teach you, get you in the habit of training your brain to make good decisions and make even better ones for next time.
• 10:50
  SPEAKER_00: And that snowball effect, because now you're practicing it, that snowball effect will allow you to make more and more good decisions and in a quicker manner.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_00: I have made a lot of decisions as a small business owner.
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_00: And you know what?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: I've learned to make decisions faster because when I think about it, when I plan for it, when I spend all this time, I can spend years, and I have, I can spend years planning the perfect thing.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_00: Just tonight, I sent something to my team where I said, you know what?
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_00: We're gonna do this.
• 11:25
  SPEAKER_00: And I put together a little system, I purchased a product, I got it set up and said, here, it's not perfect.
• 11:32
  SPEAKER_00: It's not going to be.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: I want to launch next week.
• 11:35
  SPEAKER_00: And the reason why is because I could spend a year finding the perfect thing.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_00: We've already spent months with it's on our back burner.
• 11:45
  SPEAKER_00: We want to get this done, but we might we need to spend some time on it.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_00: We need to make sure it's the right one.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_00: We need to look around.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: Nope, we're done.
• 11:52
  SPEAKER_00: We're making a choice because it's better to have something working than to have the perfect thing three years from now when it's too late.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: So work on making those decisions.
• 12:04
  SPEAKER_00: Work on this, these techniques so you can have better and better decision-making process, so you can have a more rapid decision-making process, and so that you can have further and more success because of your practice at making good decisions in a timely manner.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_00: Okay, so that's my advice.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks for listening, and as always, I am Tim Corey.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_02: Thank you for joining us for this episode of Dev Questions.
• 12:32
  SPEAKER_02: Tim is committed to making it easier for you to become a developer.
• 12:35
  SPEAKER_02: If you would like to help make more content like this possible, please like, subscribe, rate, and share Dev Questions.
• 12:43
  SPEAKER_02: You can also send your questions to questions at IamTimcorey.com.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_02: Until next time, remember, you are too smart and your time too valuable to waste it making all the mistakes Tim did.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_02: When you're ready to learn to think and code like a professional developer, head over to imtimcore.com and enroll in a course.