How to deal with procrastination: I Want to Start a Business but I Never Actually Start.

I know what some of you are going to do here, because it is what I would do. You will start arguing with the definition. Does a long conversation count? Does the weekend you spent reading count? Leave that argument alone and use the researchers' rule exactly as it stands, because the whole value of borrowing somebody else's definition is that it cannot be talked out of its answer by the person being measured.

From chapter 2: The three-month window

That may be hard to answer about a week three years ago, and that's fair enough. Try the most recent one instead. Since last Monday, what have you done for this business that another person was in a position to refuse? A course doesn't count. A book doesn't count. Reading this chapter doesn't count either, and saying so now is cheaper than letting you close the book tonight feeling like you moved something.

From chapter 6: The course that never ends

That is how the book looks at “how to deal with procrastination”: one idea at a time, with a step you can take right away. Of course, this is only one idea from the book. So, if this passage speaks to you, the full chapter goes further, and it ends with an exercise you can do the same evening.

In short, the book has 11 chapters, and each one ends with a practical exercise. Therefore, you can read it in order, or you can go straight to the part about “how to deal with procrastination”.

1. The gap between wanting and doing
2. The three-month window
3. What counts as started
4. The number that keeps moving
5. Preparation and its stop condition
6. The course that never ends
7. The licence you do not need
8. Why later always wins
9. Nobody chooses the day they start
10. The unfinished task
11. Fourteen days

Finally, you can get I Want to Start a Business but I Never Actually Start: Count the Years, Not the Months in the stores below. Because every title of this book shares the same text, you can simply pick the one you like best. Also, the book is available in 19 languages.

In addition, each title below highlights a different idea from the same book.

• I Want to Start a Business but I Never Actually Start: The Attempts That Died Took Longer
• I Want to Start a Business but I Never Actually Start: How to Stop Preparing and Find Out
• But I Never Actually Start: Preparing Is Not Progress
• I Want to Start a Business but I Never Actually Start: Fourteen Days to a Real Answer
• I Want to Start a Business: Preparing Is Not Progress
• But I Never Actually Start: Eleven Chapters on the Gap Between Wanting and Doing
• I Want to Start a Business: Why Preparing Feels Like Progress and Isn't
• I Want to Start a Business: Stop Getting Ready and Let a Stranger Answer You
• Why Do I Never Actually Start?: Preparing Is Not Progress
• I Want to Start a Business: One Question, One Stranger, Fourteen Days

See all 43 titles. Go to the book page.