How do you overcome ‘analysis paralysis’ when you set your goals?

[MarinaT]

Hey Udemy instructors,

Analysis paralysis is when individuals cannot act due to over-thinking a certain problem. When setting your goals, this could be an issue when you want to give yourself a clear path. Analysis paralysis can also affect your everyday life when you have to tackle a problem. 

With that, I have a question for you all.

How do you overcome ‘analysis paralysis’ when you set your goals?

Share your tips, tricks, and experiences below to inspire and support our community! 

[FrankKane]

Mostly by not having goals... at least not long term ones. Things change too quickly for that.

Instead, I keep a document of ideas for ways to productively invest my time. When I finish a project, I review that list and pick the most impactful thing on it to do next.

To accomplish said Impactful Thing, I use much smaller, shorter term goals. I'll wake up and say "today I'll get this thing working" or "I'll make slides for this section of the course" or "I'll handle these updates today." And then focus on getting that next step done. The goal is to make steady, persistent progress, on whatever makes sense at the time. Bigger things then happen naturally, on a realistic timeframe.

[Edouard Renard]

Quite similar for me, I don't set deadlines and goals (unless I'm in the middle of a course in October and want to publish before Black Friday, for example).

My goal is just to work X hours per week. I track my time and if I manage to do X hours in a week, on something productive (course, youtube tutorial, etc), then I'm happy with my work.