Paralysis by analysis...

“Paralysis by analysis.” I didn’t coin the phrase - I  actually heard Geoff Lawton say it at a weekend course - but it stuck with me.

It is a powerful idea, and I've been subject to it more times than I can remember.

I'll overanalyse a situation to the point where nothing gets done, until  - some might call that contemplation. It's okay to think things through, but it's easy to get stuck in overthinking.

(My brain) "Hmm... It looks to me like there's a wet patch of soil over there. Maybe I should try growing rice there...?"
(Also my brain) "What a stupid idea... who grows rice at home...?"
(My brain again) "I bet I could do it..."
Scours the 30 square meter area for 4 days... Imagines what I'd do had I had an A-frame...
(My brain) "I can so do this...!"

Finally, a few hours or days later, on the wettest of days, and probably the worst (or best?) of days to get started, you grab your trusty shovel and start throwing around sand (soil is pretty sandy in West Africa) since now YOU SUDDENLY HAVE A VISION and you can't afford to wait 30 minutes until the rain stops. That would lead to more paralysis. So you get at it while your wife rolls her eyes at you from a dry place, but you don't care at all because you know this is what it's all about... You've been bitten by a permabug.

What's the moral of this story? I'm not sure that there is one, perhaps it has something to do with finding a balance between analysis and action, but more so it is a personal story of mine which has led to a pretty epic small scale system of a rice, swales planted to multiple fruit and support trees, ground covers, neighboured by a future veggie garden (beds made but not fully planted) and a banana/papaya/coconut circle topped up with palm mulch.

Nikolaj Vinicoff wrote:

a)   (Also my brain) "What a stupid idea... .?"

b)    ....YOU SUDDENLY HAVE A VISION and you can't afford to wait 30 minutes until the rain stops.

c)    ....perhaps it has something to do with finding a balance between analysis and action,

d)  ....it is a personal story of mine which has led to a pretty epic small scale system of a rice, swales planted to multiple fruit and support trees, ground covers, neighboured by a future veggie garden (beds made but not fully planted) and a banana/papaya/coconut circle topped up with palm mulch.

Permit me to wax psychological on a cold, snowy, northern Minnesota Sunday afternoon..... ?   ;-)

In (a) you reveal the presence the "inner critical voice" that many of us share and which so often is assumed to have its origins in our own independent experiences.  But more typically that voice came from another....a parent/caregiver....in efforts to 'shame' you away from certain behaviors.  That now carries forward into your adult life where you will find many opportunities to shame yourself again over efforts to simply try something new.

Not content with fate providing the right situation to prove you correct in that shame, you take the worst time (b) to attempt to plant the rice, nudging your efforts towards failure so that you can actually feel justified in the self-depricating state.

As you begin to realize how the interplay between (a) and (b) can lead to overthinking and subsequent inertia (Analysis Paralysis), you begin to embrace the better, more realistic and fruitful idea that a balance between careful planning and diving in with the shovel (c) is an appropriate and time-tested response to problem solving.  Ultimately, your efforts lead to ....
(d)  the epic garden and forest that you have nurtured and soon will nurture you!

You join countless many on this road to permie realization and self-actualization.....  Glasses raised to all of us on that path! ('clink')

Dear John, I absolutely love your psychological feedback I raise a glass to you and the rest of us on this journey

"Do or do not. There is no try" - Yoda

Some might call it contemplation - how about observation?! Also, while raining may not be the obvious time to get a shovel and start digging, if water management (thinking paddy fields) is important, then that actually sounds like an excellent time to be making garden beds. I do like your aerial view of the bananas!

I like to think about things and make lots of fantasy gardens on paper....Most of them do come about eventually, unless the location is taken over by another idea.

Sometimes I feel a bit like I don't have the energy to move forward, but then all of a sudden, I realize a way to solve a problem that was there all along, but wasn't "presenting" as the problem stalling things. Or if it was, a part of me wasn't happy with the solution.

Often it is first thing as I'm waking up in the morning, when all of a sudden I realize a solution that will make a project work. And then like Nikolaj, I suddenly get a project moving.

Figuring out what the block is, is the tricky part. Once I think I have, I try hard to make sure I gather the resources I need so they're ready when the timing works out. Most special projects have to fit around regular responsibilities, and the weather. There are some things I'd be prepared to do in the rain, and some that are just too dangerous!