Learning is nothing without doing

Living in the information age it’s easy to become overwhelmed and paralysed by the mass of content available to help you do just about anything. It’s so easy to find out anything about everything. The fundamental problem however, is that all the theory in the world cannot compete or outperform a basic understanding, that is put into action.

Growing up as a skateboarder, learning through doing is my native tongue. Friends and I would watch skate videos to see our hero’s perform tricks, then spend hours upon hours every day, out in the streets attempting to perform those same tricks. The best trick-tip videos could never have achieved what those countless hours of practice did for increasing our skill.

The same is true for growing a business and building a brand. Getting started for most is the hardest part designing the visual brand identity, building a website, creating content and marketing the business can all be overwhelming tasks. Theres plenty of strategic information available. But if you don’t get started and try you will never have any return to show for the time you’ve invested.  At times I find myself consuming content for contents sake. With so many books, posts, podcasts, videos and more on demand it’s easy to fall victim to thinking we need to consume it all just to keep up. But I challenge you to ask yourself how much are you actually putting into action?

Tim Ferris the entrepreneur, investor, author, podcaster, and lifestyle guru, talks about the idea of going on an ‘information diet’ in his book ‘The 4 Hour Work Week.’ he In short, an Information Diet is the act of cutting yourself off from all unnecessary content. Taking a look at the information you consume daily and restricting it to an absolute minimum.  An example given in the book is the staying up to date with current affairs in the daily news. He argues that avoiding the urge to watch, read or listen, helps free up valuable time and brain power for other more meaningful work. (Even prior to reading the book I have happily lived this approach through-out my life.

What content are you consuming daily? Is it providing any benefit? Are you putting what you learn into action? Or could you free up some time or mental capacity by limiting your content consumption?

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