Unseen obstacles, planning fallacy, and how I overcame it

Many people I've seen list out their plan and what they're going to do for their startup. They'll state "I'll have x done by z and so on".

However, it'll be weeks after their due date and their project is still not finished.

They'll have valid excuses too. Payment method wouldn't work, co-founder/employee was sick, took forever to solve this bug, etc, etc

This is known as the planning fallacy, which is when one assumes things will take shorter than they actually do, and I'll tell my story of how I realized I was falling victim to it and overcame it.

In the past couple of weeks, mostly the month of November, we had some issues with registering an AWS account, which was required for how we operate.

For some reason, the card kept declining.

Simple problem, right? Just ask Amazon and they'll have everything ready in a day or two.

Dead wrong. The whole process took us 3 weeks to solve, which was 3 weeks worth of time we could have spent developing our product. (In the end, it was because Amazon only accepts Visa, American Express, or Mastercard, and our card was neither).

I had fallen victim to the planning fallacy.

The simple and easy response would just be to plan earlier right? Well, yes, that helps you avoid being late for a deadline, but it doesn't help you complete your task any faster...

How I overcame it

The time had unfortunately already been lost, so there was nothing to be done about that. However, I did learn something, and it was the importance of finding ways to be productive even if an external problem is holding you back .

For the Amazon issue, I actually oversimplified how it played out. In reality, it was only my business card that threw up the error, but my personal card was fine.

So I gave myself the excuse, "I don't want to mix my personal expenses with my business expenses, so let's just wait for Amazon".

Sure, that's a totally valid concern to have, but for me, it was just an excuse to prevent taking action.

I wanted to have a valid excuse to not take action, and I got one, which delayed our work massively.

For others, it may take a different form. How many times have you thought to yourself or heard others say: "I'm waiting for x to process/download/respond, and I can't get anything done without x, so I'll just wait until it's done to take action".

There's always something you can do, especially as an entrepreneur. Website down? Take the time to put extra care and personalization into customer support. Can't get a crucial part of your product working no matter how much you try and awaiting an answer on Stack Overflow? Promote your product. Computer literally broken? Promote your product from your phone.

If there's one thing I learned, if all other options with regards to actually working on your project are cut off due to unplanned issues, then there is always promoting your product and building your social media.

It might not be top priority right now, it might even be low priority compared to getting the product to work, but it only matters that it's something.

When you finally get the issue resolved, you'll find the other areas you worked on in your downtime are much further along than if you just waited.

Always be doing something.

What I did next

The next time something like this came up, it was when we applied for a Visa business card with the bank. Rather than waiting another precious few weeks for it to come, we just used my personal card for AWS.

Furthermore, I was promoting my waitlist for the product on social media every day, and especially whenever I was waiting on something to process or verify.

It was really that simple. All I had to do was to embrace an action taking mindset.

When does it not apply?

However, despite what I've said, there ARE times when you should genuinely just take a break, where it's fine to do "nothing".

For example, if your children are ill, you're spending time with family, or if you've been foregoing your own personal health and putting off going to the doctor for some concerning symptoms.

Your health and your family still matter.

"Always be doing something" is a heuristic, not a hard rule.

But it's a damn good heuristic that will help you push through unplanned obstacles.

You can find more of by #buildinginpublic and insights on Twitter: https://twitter.com/TheRealEtch

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