Have you ever had an "aha" moment but then didn't follow through?
 

Today, I revisited notes I made EIGHT years ago and realized I had taken absolutely NO action on those insights.

And now that I think about it, I realize that I could have taken action. It wasn't like I didn't have the resources to act.

Why does this even happen?

Could it be that the time wasn't "right" back then?

What's holding us back from putting insights into action?

Please share your thoughts. Let's figure this out together

In a word: habits.
 

A couple of old adages; space fills itself and time is already allocated.

A clean, clutter free desk can be quickly overrun with paper, files, books, courses, etc. If there is blank space, we find a way to use it...thus all the Marie Kondo type clutter consultants, books and courses. In USA, we fill up basements, attics, spare rooms, garages, sheds and THEN WE GO AND RENT A STORAGE UNIT.

We are creatures of daily habits, routines, and a lot of those routines are non productive, disguised as being busy and productive, but really just filling in the time alloted for X, Y or Z.

One of the reasons for Pomodoro timers, is to keep us on track and focused for short periods of time. Without time lines, or deadlines, we tend to get distracted; we might be searching for more information about the AhHA moment, when we go down the worm hole, often a black hole of more and more until we forgot what we were doing (I'm as guilty as anyone).

To overcome my natural inclination toward laziness (work? werk??!!), I had to develop ways to overcome this and what worked best for me was shorter time frames with very specific goals...or until I got so into it that I just kept going.

So, one trick I had, was a time cushion in every block of time, say a two hour block, there would be 20 minutes built in to APPLY those insights I had come across...often just by writing them down and making a file, I like to use OpenOffice and keep NEW ideas on my desktop until they have been used...then move to a folder.

Start building a habit of setting aside a little bit of time daily to USE and apply those insights and illuminating moments you get, but that is just my way.

Gordon

I agree with you on timeframes, Gordon
 

In what may seem like heresy to the self-improvement industry, I began this year with absolutely no annual goals

Never found a way to make annual goals work. They always seem to be an exercise in prophecy (and I ain't no prophet, even for events in my own life!)

Could NEVER have predicted the key sales & business connections made this year so far. Feels more like harvest time coming for little efforts sown in the past

That's why I've chosen to ignore traditional "goals" and focus more on daily small wins.

Breaking down projects into daily no-brainer tasks that I know I can definitely do.

Not some wild fancy leaps over the rainbow, that almost never happen

P.S. About the files you mention, after dabbling with a few productivity apps, have finally decided to stick to a spreadsheet to keep track of my ideas, tasks and projects. Got the idea from this Reddit post. Been working well for me so far