Too Much Thinking, Too Much Doing

A couple of years ago, before I founded my company, I was an avid reader, listener, learner. I could consume hours of podcasts, read dozens of articles a day. Looking back, it shows that I didn’t have enough on my plate, so I channeled that energy into consumption of information.

It was great, and I knew a lot, yet… Did all that info really help? I mean, I read a dozen books about startups too… and then you are going through it. Some of the advice, you realize, is mostly for those startups that already made it (when 90% is in the limbo), and some of it is just too general.

And you have so much to do, just so much. So you don’t think much. Every day you are in firefighter mode. You are not that strategic at all, you are just surviving. And then, that becomes a daily routine, I wake up, survive, I sleep, without much thinking about where we are going, and what we are doing.

I was critical of my old self, and I always have these notes, every year. Almost like manifestos. When I was starting my company, I said, now we will do. No more reading day after day with no action, now we do.

And now it has been two years, and I realized I don’t read, or think enough about what we do, where we go. Now I have been on the other end of the pendulum. I am just doing too much, without thinking, without understanding.

Now, I say to myself, do a lot, but stop sometimes to think. Clearly just reading and studying didn’t work, and doing at least got me to start but that also didn’t make us a unicorn yet. You have to stop, take a step back, and think. I write this for all those founders out there, who may have the urge to push, do, pitch, do 100x things every day and feel tired at night. That alone will not get you to the result. You have to do a lot, but in the right direction, and that requires thinking and reflecting, and counter-intuitively, that requires you to slow down, and do less for a while, so that you can do more in the right direction later.