Konubinix' opinionated web of thoughts

Feel Confident Not Doing What You Are Not Doing

fleeting

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See also procrastination.

A recurring phrase in gtd.

I think it means that you build the trusted system so that your brain can relax, because it knows something has captured the task, project commitments… anything that generally produces cognitive load.

Then, you decide to do something, you take a look at the system to realise how you feel not doing what is in here. If you feel confident, then do it. If you know that the stuff in your system are more important, you should hear that voice that says « this is actually more important » and decide to do it instead.

If you think you have forgotten what is important, take a look at your horizons of focus.

Feeling confident does not mean feeling well about it. You can feel bad about your situation, while still feeding confident that it was the best move you could take.

To me, this principle it universal and does not depend on whatever practical philosophy school you follow (stoicism or whatever). I don’t see any situation where feeling confident not doing what you are not doing is not the best move.

Even when you are planning to fail and when interruptions cause a great anxiety, if you feel confident dealing with the interruption and you feel bad about it, you most likely feel the least bad you could.1

Notes linking here

  1. you could try using dichotomy of control and decide not to feel bad about it, but that is another discussion, ↩︎