Making the call is making progress

When you put off decisions, they pile up. And piles end up ignored, dealt with in

haste, or thrown out. As a result, the individual problems in those piles stay

unresolved.

Whenever you can, swap "Let's think about it" for "Let's decide on it."

Commit to making decisions. Don't wait for the perfect solution. Decide and

move forward.

You want to get into the rhythm of making choices. When you get in that flow

of making decision after decision, you build momentum and boost morale.

Decisions are progress. Each one you make is a brick in your foundation. You

can't build on top of "We'll decide later," but you can build on top of "Done."

The problem comes when you postpone decisions in the hope that a perfect

answer will come to you later. It won't. You're as likely to make a great call

today as you are tomorrow.

An example from our world: For a long time, we avoided creating an affiliate

program for our products because the "perfect" solution seemed way too

complicated: We'd have to automate payments, mail out checks, figure out

foreign tax laws for overseas affiliates, etc. The breakthrough came when we

asked, "What can we easily do right now that's good enough?" The answer: Pay

affiliates in credit instead of cash. So that's what we did.

We stuck with that approach for a while and then eventually implemented a

system that pays cash. And that's a big part of this: You don't have to live with a

decision forever. If you make a mistake, you can correct it later.

It doesn't matter how much you plan, you'll still get some stuff wrong anyway.

Don't make things worse by overanalyzing and delaying before you even get

going.

Long projects zap morale. The longer it takes to develop, the less likely it is to

launch. Make the call, make progress, and get something out now--while you've

got the motivation and momentum to do so.