The Nine Reasons We Don’t Do What We Should

These lists brought the synthesist out in me. We are all, to some extent, both employees (even CEOs work for their customers) and managers (we all self-manage much of our work). And our behaviour in our work lives is often not that different in our home lives: In both roles there are similar reasons why we don’t do what we should do. And having worked with a Getting Things Done approach now for six months, I’ve become aware that there are many (often very good) reasons why we don’t do what we should, even when we know exactly what we should do.

Here’s my synthesized list of the nine reasons we don’t do what we should, in all aspects of our lives, in what I think is order of prevalence.

1. Fear: We are legitimately afraid we will fail, or that we don’t have the needed skill, or that others will criticize us. We are afraid, most of all, of the consequences of failure — humiliation, ridicule, loss of financial or employment or social status. It isn’t risk we dislike, it’s failure.
2. Lack of Self-Confidence: We are afraid we will fail, even though these fears are groundless. This reason is hard to distinguish from #1 above when #3 below is in play. Am I afraid because I’m really pushing my limits, or because people around me have been putting me down?
3. Lack of Knowledge: We don’t know what to do, or how or why to do it, or, through ignorance, we see obstacles that don’t really exist or which have simple workarounds. Or we disagree with others on what should be done — either because we lack knowledge or because they do. How about analysis paralysis — is there such a things as too much knowledge? I don’t think so — when I feel paralyzed my indecision usually stems from fear or lack of self-confidence, and I keep gathering more knowledge hoping it will overcome the fears (it won’t). A lot of tension (and waste) in the workplace is caused when managers lacking knowledge tell more knowledgeable subordinates to do the wrong things. That’s a structural problem that generally becomes endemic in organizations as they get larger and more hierarchical.
4. Trying to Do Too Much Alone: We in the West live in such an individual-oriented world — cowboys are our heroes, and relying on others is seen as weakness. Reward systems, for all their talk of teamwork, generally pit each of us against others and encourage us to compete instead of cooperate. And when we work alone we are able to be selfish — we don’t have to accommodate others’ wants and needs.
5. Trying to Do Too Much:  Most of us allow ourselves to set expectations far too high for what we can accomplish well and reasonably in a fixed amount of time, and allow others to set unreasonable expectations of us. Despite the popularity of Getting Things Done and other self-organizing tools, I think what appears to be poor organization and lack of priority setting is most often just trying to do too much. The most successful people I know do one or two things really well, and any time left over they use serendipitously. They keep no lists.
6. Loss of Self: We can get so caught up in trying to please others (for various reasons — love, job promotion, sense of responsibility) that we stop pleasing ourselves, and our whole sense of self suffers, to the point we are dreadfully unhappy but no longer know why. This is almost the opposite of #4, but closely intertwined with #2 as well.
7. Lack of Energy: It is human nature (and the nature of all species) to do as little as possible to be happy. Genuine complacency means you are not doing anything else because you are genuinely happy doing nothing. Complacency isn’t not doing what you think you should, so it doesn’t belong on this list. But complacency, procrastination and lack of energy are easy to confuse (and often all three bring accusations of ‘laziness’ from others). Procrastination is usually driven by one or more of #1 to #6 above, and the procrastinator rarely feels complacent or happy. But sometimes we know something needs to be done but we simply lack the energy, the drive, the spirit to do it. That can be caused by #4 or #5 above, but it may simply be more personal — physical malaise or emotional exhaustion.
8. Lack of Reward: Management and psychology texts would put this much higher on the list, but I believe generally we set our own rewards, and external incentives and threats are rarely effective at getting people to do anything for any sustained period of time, if any of the other problems on this list is in play. But we do all need some fun in our lives, and unless we reward ourselves regularly we’ll burn out, and #7 or #6 will start blocking us from getting things done. 
9. It Can’t Be Done: One of the things that interested me most about the Getting Things Done approach was adding to your ‘to do’ lists the longer-term ‘wish list’ projects that you’ve always wanted to do, and would regret if you died without doing, but have never got around to starting. The approach suggests you put these things on a special list and break them into manageable steps and commit to doing the next step in each project on a regular basis. While this makes sense in theory, I wonder whether users of this approach actually make it work. I suspect some of these projects are really just dreams, things that, if we were to be brutally honest with ourselves, have almost no likelihood of being accomplished in our lifetimes. By putting them on the list, are we inspiring ourselves to reach higher, or just setting ourselves up for disappointment? A debate about whether impossible dreams are healthy, or just a mechanism to allow society to subjugate us (and get us to buy lottery tickets) is beyond the scope of this article (though it might be an interesting one — what do you think?), but there’s no question that one reason we don’t do things is that we don’t believe they (or what they are leading to) can be achieved.

So what do we do about these things? How do we overcome these obstacles to doing what we should do? For the most part, the answers are pretty obvious once we recognize which of the nine reasons are in play. Lack of knowledge (#3) requires more research, more sharing of information. Trying to do too much alone (#4) requires learning to collaborate, and to delegate. Trying to do too much (#5) requires learning to say no, and to focus on doing one or two things really well. Lack of energy (#7) requires some introspection as to the cause — physical (in which case the solution may be improvements to diet or exercise) or emotional (in which case meditation or a life change may be in order). Lack of reward (#8) requires being good to ourselves, and to others, in balance. Trying to do the impossible (#9) requires some navel-gazing, and either stopping trying to do it (which may require some candid discussion with others who may have put it on our list), or changing it (or our lives) in some significant way so that it becomes possible, or recognizing it is just a dream and focusing energies on other, attainable things, until and unless circumstances dramatically change.

The solution to #2 and #6 is much more difficult — these causes of inaction are part of what we are, and will take a long time to overcome. Perhaps just realizing that they are the reason why we’re not doing what we should is an important first step.

And there is no solution to #1, except courage.