Just Do It: Getting Things Done Before They Need to be Done

AI image generated by Jared Belcher with DALL-E

This is a story about almost getting fired, Christmas shopping, and becoming more productive.

Christmas Newlyweds

When you get married, you quickly learn that random behaviors you mistook for “normal” are completely different from family to family. How you load the dishwasher, how you pack a suitcase, what time you plan to arrive at a party, how you leave that party, what “relaxing” means- all these little ways you grew up doing things are unique to each family and when you bring two people together, you discover those differences.

We got married in October and I immediately panicked - we were behind on our Christmas shopping! Or so I thought. Jill’s responses was probably like yours- what are you talking about?

See, one of those differences is how Jill and I grew up shopping for Christmas presents. In Jill’s family, they would head to the stores in mid-December and see what they saw, and pick up a few presents as they came across them. “Oh, Sam would like this! What if we got this for Haley?” Sounds nice, like a leisurely stroll into a Hallmark Christmas movie.

In my family, I don’t think we ever, ever shopped in December. Christmas shopping was a battle plan formed in early fall. In August, my parents would ask for lists from the kids. Then the plan could come together. There were spreadsheets, catalogues, coupons, shopping days scheduled with the exact item and corresponding store, and in most cases, our family’s annual Black Friday conquest. “Success” meant we were not only done shopping for Christmas by December 1, but that all the presents were wrapped and under the tree by then, too.

Jill was shocked. Where I saw us as way behind schedule, she pointed out that it was still two months before Christmas.

The thing is, over the years, I’ve convinced her that my way is superior (she’ll tell you so!). In 2023, we had 100% of our Christmas presents planned, bought, and under the tree by December 1. We went to West Town Mall on December 23 just to enjoy the lights and decorations while all the other people ran around frantically trying to find the right present at the right price.

Success, no stress.

It’s a silly example- it doesn’t really matter how you Christmas shop. But this is actually a productivity principal I have found incredibly stress-relieving in my work life. It’s a super complex principal, you’ll want to write it down. Ready?

Just do the thing.

Let me explain. When you find out you need to get something done, regardless of when it’s “due,” get it done as soon as possible. This is not exactly the same thing as not procrastinating. Christmas shopping on December 8 is not procrastinating. Instead what I mean is that, as soon as you can see a task coming down the pike, you complete it.

If you have 30 days to get a simple work project done, something you know will take 5 minutes, do not wait 28 days before you begin. Do it today.

Not revolutionary. But incredibly helpful.

How I almost got fired

The little video that almost got me fired

I remember in my first month as Creative Director, we had been planning a video that explained how people could get connected within the church. It would be my first video to be fully animated (and I was not an animator and had no clue how to make this video). We had been planning it in our creative meetings, but for weeks I had yet to start on it because, truthfully, I had no clue how to even start.

But I was the guy, there was no one else to do it. I just had no clue how to make it.

So I delayed and delayed, riddled with anxiety, waiting until the last minute when I would have no choice but to figure it out.

On a Thursday, near the end of the workday, Pastor Ben asked to see the video. “Oh, right…. it’s not done, I’ll have it done next week,” I said. His face froze. Silence. Then the worst news, “That video is showing this Sunday, or it was supposed to.”

I was horrified. I had the date wrong, and worst of all, I hadn’t even started on the project beyond the VoiceOver script. Our church was doing a huge push for this “Connection Sunday”- we had volunteers ready to sign people up for things, we had a print card ready to go- so it wasn't possible to simply play the video on another Sunday. It was now or never, and I had delayed too long.

“It’s fine. We’ll do something else,” he said, but I could hear the frustration in his voice. From his perspective, we had been planning this video for weeks, and it was my entire job to make this kind of stuff. I knew this was the kind of screw-up that got you fired. What excuse was there for it not even being started? “No, I’ll have it done for Sunday,” I told him as I left his office.

I called my friend and co-worker, Brent, and asked for his help in planning the video. His wife offered to do the VoiceOver. I watched a lot of Youtube videos on animating. I stayed in the office all weekend. Brent gave me feedback on the drafts I sent him. On Sunday morning, we played the finished video. And thankfully, I wasn’t fired.

The right way to arrive at a project’s finish line

I never wanted to feel that way again. I never wanted to let down my team like that. People were counting on me and even if I was unsure of the way forward, it was my path to take, and I would only hurt myself by delaying. One way or another, the deadline would arrive.

There was another version of how that story could have gone. In June, when I first got assigned this project, I could have written out the steps I’d need to take. The first step would have been, figure out how to do motion graphics. If I had given three hours a week to this project, it would have been finished weeks ahead of schedule.

The question was, how do I prefer I make it to the finish line- heaving, out of breath, barely employed, and stumbling? Or well prepared, smiling, and relaxed?

I quickly learned that if I delayed on a project at all, it meant late nights, stress, poor quality, and at the very worst, an incomplete project delivered too late to be useful.

Conversely, if I got a task done way, WAY ahead of schedule, the benefits were endless. I’d feel better, we could fix mistakes, we’d have more time for revisions, if someone got a date wrong it would be fine, and I could actually do far more.

The solution could not be simpler: Just do it.

The moment you become aware of a task, either do it right then or put it on your calendar to do at a specific time later.

That first step may be to plan it out - that’s ok! Even if my first step is to write out why I’m hesitant, or why I feel like this is an impossible task, or what I’m anxious about, acknowledging the “why” behind delaying is going to help me find a solution.

These tasks will have to get done one way or another. So ask yourself, when is better to do them?

If you already know that you’ll need to make a phone call, put together an agenda, submit a report, do your taxes, complete some paperwork - just do it now. Get ahead of yourself.

Yep, we Christmas Shop in August

That story I just shared happened in 2013, well before my wife and I even started dating. By the time we got together, I probably looked like the kind of guy skillfully managed a to-do list. But in reality, that had been a hard-earned modification. I tried to learn from my failures. I became a religious planner and “doer.” Now, it brings me so much joy.

Today, I’m raising the next generation of Belchers-who-Christmas-shop-in-August. The other day my wife brought this up to me and said something like, “People really need to do this. It used to seem silly to me that you’d want us to plan Malachi’s birthday party 4 months in advance or our family White Elephant gifts in October, but times passes so quickly and suddenly it’s here, and we’re not stressed about it. That’s just so different than how I used to do things.”

When you Christmas shop in August, you spend your December eating, laughing, caroling, celebrating, and walking around the mall just to look at Christmas lights.

Worth it. Just do it.