How many action fakes can the fastlane come up with??

[Beijing]

Hello Beijing, thanks for the feedback.
I understand your point of view as I also have a day job to pay the bills. I think there's a "lack of follow-through" issue I'm dealing with.
There's nothing wrong with working a solid hour per day, however, I beleive that doing more (productive) hours will make me progress a lot faster.

I think a possible action-fake could be spending time contemplating how to be more efficient. I'm a big fan of simply jumping in with two feet, because over time, from creating real things, you'll naturally learn and adopt more efficient approaches to using your time.

However, if you're doing one of the following, you're (probably) not action-faking:

(1) Creating a prototype to show to your target user group to collect actionable feedback to use for building the next prototype or an actual MVP. (But read Nail It, Then Scale It first on how to collect valuable actionable feedback from potential users about your prototype or MVP first - trust me, reading those book is definitely not an action-fake, provided you don't consider reading it "working.")

(2) Creating an MVP that you'll actually try to sell for real money.

(3) Trying to sell an MVP that is or isn't finished, just to see if there's market demand for what you want to make.

(4) Doing a couple hours of reading / video watching to learn about Facebook marketing campaign strategy IF your MVP is at least 80% finished and you'll soon be ready to attempt to sell it.

(5) Attempting to code a rough, simplified version of a product you've envisioned with the sole purpose of learning computer programming.

(6) Collecting email addresses / phone numbers to cold-contact to try to sell either a finished product or an unfinished product that you have a pre-sales strategy for, assuming that you stop at about 100-200 email addresses or 25-50 phone numbers and actually trying out your intended sales strategy to see if it's potentially worth collecting more email address / phone numbers.

If you're doing one or more of those things with your time, I wouldn't worry too much about efficiency, because that will come with time. I'd focus more on being consistent with an hour a day for a while (for 5 days a week, feel free to give yourself 2 days off) and then trying to bump up than one hour a day to two hours a day. Putting that time in, doing productive things that actually involve developing a product / sale channel for a mostly completed or fully completed product, will lead to efficiencies with time probably more efficiently than trying to brainstorm ways to be more efficient with the limited information you may have at this point in time about how you could be using the time you're investing more efficiently.

 

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[sujit1717]

My Action fakes are:

1) Let me buy this book. Then I will take some action

2) Google Best movies to watch an entrepreneur

3) Let me create a proper plan

4) Let me search any product. Google few hours and then go to sleep

 

[Jeix]

"we need to setup a PO BOX in Delaware and incorporate there because that's what Uber does"

This exact thing but you are from Italy.

(yes, I've been guilty of these thoughts in the past)

 

[MJ DeMarco]

"I read your 3 books, they changed my life. What book do I read next?"

This tells me my books didn't change your life. They might have planted some seeds in your mind, but they didn't change your life. If they did, you wouldn't be asking the next book to read.

At some point you got to stop reading about how to swim, and jump in the pool.

 

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[Skroob]

"I read your 3 books, they changed my life. What book do I read next?"

This tells me my books didn't change your life. They might have planted some seeds in your mind, but they didn't change your life. If they did, you wouldn't be asking the next book to read.

At some point you got to stop reading about how to swim, and jump in the pool.

I read too much. "Books make you smarter", and who doesn't want to be smarter? So I read the same seven books over and over, presented in the same ways by different authors, and don't get anything done because reading books is easier than doing something.

Anyway. Sorry MJ, but I'm not gonna read Rat Race, because I've done Fastlane and Unscripted already and I need to get stuff done instead of reading more books.

 

[ZackerySprague]

Me in 2022: *Reads books just because, instead of taking any action*

 

[Felix Nachem]

I think this 5000th youtube video is going to get me where i need to be...

 

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[Beijing]

"I read your 3 books, they changed my life. What book do I read next?"

This tells me my books didn't change your life. They might have planted some seeds in your mind, but they didn't change your life. If they did, you wouldn't be asking the next book to read.

At some point you got to stop reading about how to swim, and jump in the pool.

The best way to end up reading another book, is to be taking meaningful action and discover something that you know nothing about and need to gain some essential knowledge quickly, in order to continue to move forward. For example, if you're writing sales-copy for the first time, it's probably a good idea to do a little research first. Reading another book, in some cases, might be the most efficient way to give yourself a basic primer on a new area of information.

Most of the time, though, a book is not even necessary. Usually a half-an-hour on Wikipedia and a few other websites is going to be all that is really needed.

 

[Felix Nachem]

"Let me read this book about "Work Life Balance" i don't want to get burned out when im starting my business."

 

[Beijing]

I don't know what my product will be or what industry my business is going to be focused on.

The next task on my to-do list is to come up with a trendy company name and make my website so that potential customers can learn all about us.

 

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[Panos Daras]

I am part of the fastlane forum now. Let me ask a question about x,y,z!

 

[P789]

playing "entrepreneur" in a simulation game found on smartphones and computers

 

[Fraf88]

I have no money

*****Sent from the Latest iPhone*****

 

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[ambitio]

"I need to know every little detail before I start."

 

[Highticket]

Need a better logo

None of the billion web templates are close enough to what I need

Need a video presentation about a product you can explain in a short paragraph

So many excuses to push things off, from personal and other peoples experience

 

[Belesarius]

I will start after my exams

After Christmas: Nobody is working in the days leading up to New Years anyways, so I am just going to take some time off

I have to clean my place up nobody can work in this kind of environment (when I was playing video Games until 4 in the morning this wasn´t a problem)

I think I have to reread X book

I have to reorganize the files on my computer first

I don´t have enough time because of uni/work (proceeds to go to the gym for 2,5 hours and go to the sauna after that)

After finding another Idea Imagining my awesome life after I take action on it, without doing the actual calculations to see if it is actually going to work

"I need to catch up with x familiy member, haven´t seen him in a while" - proceeds to talk about shit that doesn´t matter, like politics and leaving more discouraged about my future.

"What if I invest the following months in this business Idea and it will fail, I will have wasted so much time and money" - proceeds to do absolutely nothing and loosing the time anyways, because no Action was taken

"Can´t miss this important football game" - forgets the final score one week later

"I will just listen to one more podcast, listen to another motivational song, watch another motivational movie, read another business book, instead of starring at a wall and listening to my own thoughts — way to uncomfortable

Easy to spot action fakes - You know right away if something is an action fake or not

Hard to spot action fakes - Action fakes that look like something good to outsiders (take care of your health, family etc. And can even feel extremely uncomfortable, but not as uncomfortable as the thing you are running away from

Writing all those things down and not researching for my business.

 

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[Beijing]

Coming up with the perfect names for each of the three subscription pricing tiers before even beginning work on the product itself.

 

[MartinG]

Watching YouTube videos is the main one for me, information overload is my biggest sticking point

 

[Creative_Name]

Action faking sounds like any action that isn’t related or immediately helpful.

If the Process is like the main quest of Skyrim, then you’ve got side quests. Side quests distract from the main, and don’t really advance your story. You’re trying to avoid the main quest because of some reason idfk.

You’ve also got the actions that aren’t immediately helpful. Skipping steps, basically. “Oh, I need to sell products. I need to hire a professional photographer in a professional studio because I need professional photos”, “I need to rent an office cubicle in some area and base myself there before I even have clients”, “Oh, I need to set up xyz so my effort for the next step isn’t wasted”. Do the next step, and do it simple so you don’t procrastinate.
If this were Skyrim again, you’re looking for the horn of Jurgen Windcaller before climbing the mountain to see the greybeards. It works because it’s a video game, everything is simplified, and you know what to do before it happens. It ain’t advancing the plot tho.

Why do I get the feeling that I’m action faking somewhere?

 

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[Jon822]

"I'm going to attend this $10,000 seminar so I can learn how to manage my money better."

 

[Iso]

"I'm going to attend this $10,000 seminar so I can learn how to manage my money better."

Invest in more education they said as I proceed to drop $5,000 a month on their special educational community.

 

[Dingy]

Reading. It's important for learning, but just start, please.

 

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[Beijing]

Just need to read three more books about how to be the CEO of a Fortune 500 company before I'm ready to start working on my product.

 

[Sabrian_maulana]

I will start after X

 

[MrE]

I have to clean my house so my mind isn't cluttered, then I will be able to focus.

 

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[MJ DeMarco]

I have to clean my house so my mind isn't cluttered, then I will be able to focus.

Interesting, this actually works or me.

The cleaner my workspace is, the more productive/clear thinking I am.

 

[Guest-5ty5s4]

Patent, trademark, copyright... On things that are not patentable, slogans or names not worth trademarking, and/or ideas not worth (or that don't need to be) copyrighted (often because they already have default copyright protection in your country).

Just get a customer.

 

[MrE]

Interesting, this actually works or me.

The cleaner my workspace is, the more productive/clear thinking I am.

I, also, am more efficient and productive with a clean and uncluttered workspace. It's when I start doing things like cleaning out closets, reorganizing the utility (junk) drawer, and polishing the silverware that I realize I am avoiding taking real action. Especially when I just did all those things last month!
I have to step back and ask myself, 'what am I avoiding?'

 

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[YouCanDoThis]

I, also, am more efficient and productive with a clean and uncluttered workspace. It's when I start doing things like cleaning out closets, reorganizing the utility (junk) drawer, and polishing the silverware that I realize I am avoiding taking real action. Especially when I just did all those things last month!
I have to step back and ask myself, 'what am I avoiding?'

Feel the same way about code. Up to an extent cleaned-up code is easier to reason about and helps progress, but there isn’t really an end to it and at some point it’s just diminishing returns and action-faking on my end.

 

[GoldFibre]

Feel the same way about code. Up to an extent cleaned-up code is easier to reason about and helps progress, but there isn’t really an end to it and at some point it’s just diminishing returns and action-faking on my end.

Yes - spending time refactoring code that already works well as a defense against working on something that will add immediate value. I was thinking about doing this today, but your post reminded me that it would be value-destroying.

If you are coding by yourself this is always a bad trade. If you work in a large team then you need to put a much heavier emphasis on code readability and reusability.