Nothing happens at your desk

Notice what the last three weeks had in common. (Week 1, Week 2, Week 3)Listing your options. Making a timelines of your constraints. Working out what you're actually good at. Every one of those can be done alone, at a kitchen table, in your notebook. Nobody else has to know. Nothing can go wrong.That's what makes them useful, and it's exactly what makes them dangerous.You can complete all three perfectly and be in precisely the same position in a year.Better informed. Still there.Thinking is not a moveA plan is a story you tell yourself. It stays a story until it meets something outside your own head.A move isn't a bigger piece of thinking. It's a different thing entirely, and it has three features. Someone else is involved. It happens on a specific day. It can go wrong.That third one is what people avoid. Given the choice between a next step somebody could refuse and one nobody could, almost everyone picks the second and calls it progress.Telling your manager you want the next level…