A key lesson I got from Designing Your Life (Bill Burnett and Dave Evans) is the idea of biasing towards action.

When in doubt and paralysed by fear and indecision, one must just act. Nike is right, just do it. And boldly.

This, of course, like most useful advice, is ancient and the idea is recurring in many different places.

Most of the time things are not obtained because they were not attempted.

— Baltasar Gracián, The Art of Worldly Wisdom, Maxim 68

It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare, it is because we do not dare that they are difficult.

— Seneca, Moral Letters to Lucilius, Letter 104.26

Our doubts are traitors, and make us lose the good we oft might win, by fearing to attempt

— William Shakespeare, Measure for Measure, Act I, Scene 4

Timidity is dangerous: Better to enter with boldness. Any mistakes you commit through audacity are easily corrected with more audacity. Everyone admires the bold; no one honors the timid.

— Robert Greene, The 48 Laws of Power, Law 28

The point is not to play as tight as you can. The point is to be bold. To be dangerous. Be elegant.

— Patrick Rothfuss, The Wise Man’s Fear, Chapter 65

A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week

— George S. Patton Jr.

Nothing learned from a book is worth anything until it is used and verified in life; only then does it begin to affect behavior and desire.

— Will Durant, Fallen Leaves: Last Words on Life, Love, War, and God

One jumps into the fray, then figures out what to do next.

— Often attributed to Napoleon Bonaparte

Whatever you think you can do or believe you can do, begin it. Action has magic, grace, and power in it.

— Often attributed to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Obsessing over the minutiae, and excessive attention to detail, and other delaying tactics are often self-preserving psychological tactics, meant to preserve (false) beliefs about our competence.

In a situation where excessive planning leads to procrastination, then any action is often better than none (with apologies to the Daoists).

Even if nothing comes of it, action produces information and real-life feedback, and feedback is immensely valuable.