When you see yourself avoiding important tasks and issues that you feel you should be addressing, run the following checklist of possible reasons and follow corresponding unblocking procedures.


1. Ill defined tasks: are you lacking proper instructions?

First of all, check if you're being really Robot-specific. Subtle indefinitions may be incredibly blocking. Write it as if you were going to delegate it. Who, how, when, how many, how much, with what tool, ... list, write it down, make selections, decide first steps, ...


2. Not really sure this is the one: have you really decided that the task in question is definitely a good  enough choice for investing your precious time? are you concerned it may not be the best call?

Reassess the worthiness of the task. Find its purpose. Know well what you are not doing and your priorities so you trust your choice. Make a very small concrete action step so you can properly assess difficulty level and estimate overall duration and worthiness. Don't end the day without allowing 5 full minutes to doing anything at all related to that task, even if you have to stare into a blank piece of paper during that time.


3. There's uncertainty or need for decisions within the execution itself? Will you be moving towards possible surprises? Will you have to risk decisions along the way?

Get better at and/or improve the tools you are using. Create and use a checklist if it's a recurrent complex procedure. Try bravery pills if it's something you just don't like. Be ok with your own reactions to bad surprises. You can't (and don't really want to) control everything..


4. Can you do it? Are you in doubt if you can complete the task successfully?

Your self-confidence is majorly important here. You believe you can, if your perceived resources seem enough for the perceived obstacles, and it's reasonable to risk the perceived danger. Perceived is not a fact, it's just a perception, sometimes a very blury one. Explore with some detail what you think can go wrong. Write it down! Explore what meaning are you giving to that possible failure. What other situations were equally challenging but coped with successfully? Make it really clear what success means in the blocked issue. Don't optimize too much your trips - just go!


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