Introduction to Bikeshedding
Melina Palmer: Welcome to episode 532 of The Brainy Business Understanding the Psychology of why People Buy. Today’s episode is all about bikeshedding.
Melina Palmer: Ready?
Melina Palmer: Let’s get started.
Announcer: You are listening to The Brainy Business Podcast where we dig into the psychology of why people buy and help you incorporate behavioral economics into your business, making it more brain friendly. Now, here’s your host, Melina Palmer.
Melina Palmer: Hello. Hello everyone. My name is Melina Palmer and I want to welcome you to The Brainy Business Podcast. Have you ever caught yourself obsessing over something super small, like the exact color of your logo or the wording on a social post, while avoiding the bigger, more important stuff that actually moves the needle? That’s bikeshedding, one of my very favorite concepts in action. And it happens to all of us. I first covered this topic back in episode 99, which originally aired in May of 2020, right in the heart of pandemic shutdowns, when the world and our brains were grappling with massive change. Today, we’re in a different kind of shifting environment, but the tendency to avoid the hard, meaningful work by hyper focusing on the trivial still going strong. I’m bringing this foundational episode back now because the next episode, number 533, is a fantastic interview with Louis Grenier about how to help your business really stand out. And spoiler, that kind of differentiation means doing things differently. Change can be uncomfortable, and that’s prime bikeshedding territory. Also, since this first episode aired, something big has happened. I gave a TEDx talk called There’s.
Melina Palmer: Nothing Magical About Monday.
Melina Palmer: It’s all about how our brains trick.
Melina Palmer: Us into thinking we’ll suddenly become more.
Melina Palmer: Productive, focused and driven starting Monday. Sound familiar? Yeah, it’s that same set of brain biases that leads us right into the bikeshed. And I do specifically call out and talk about bikeshedding in that talk. So if you haven’t watched it yet, I highly encourage you check it out. It ties in perfectly with this episode. There is a link for you in.
Melina Palmer: The show notes, along with other helpful.
Melina Palmer: Resources to keep you moving forward, including my top recommended past episodes, books, ways to get in touch with me, and more. It’s all within the app you’re listening to and at, thebrainybusiness.com/532.
Understanding Bikeshedding and Parkinson’s Law
Melina Palmer: Now let’s jump right in and talk about bikeshedding.
Melina Palmer: As with most concepts you’ll hear me.
Melina Palmer: Talk about on this show, bikeshedding.
Melina Palmer: Is something we do all the time.
Melina Palmer: And don’t really realize it’s happening the.
Melina Palmer: Thing that makes this concept different from.
Melina Palmer: A lot of others is how much it’s holding us all back all, all.
Melina Palmer: The time without our conscious consent.
Melina Palmer: Here’s what you can expect in this episode, I’m going to give you an explanation of what bikeshedding is with.
Melina Palmer: Some of the most common examples, and.
Melina Palmer: Then I’m going to give you a list of questions that you can ask yourself and explaining why those particular questions.
Melina Palmer: Matter, kind of the thought process behind.
Melina Palmer: Them to help you shake things up and get out of that bikeshedding mindset so you can actually be achieving goals but moving forward. And again, those questions are lined up with the freebie worksheet, so you should.
Melina Palmer: Go ahead and download that if you.
Melina Palmer: Haven’t already at thebrainybusiness.com/99. I’ve mentioned bikeshedding.
Melina Palmer: A few times on the podcast before. I believe it was first introduced in.
Melina Palmer: Episode 53 in the series of all.
Melina Palmer: The Biases when I talked about the Lazy Brain. The term bikeshedding was coined by Cyril Northcote Parkinson, who came up with.
Melina Palmer: A term, and that’s also why it’s called Parkinson’s Law of Triviality. Parkinson was a British naval historian and.
Melina Palmer: Author with some very astute observations that led to this concept being defined.
Parkinson’s Law of Triviality and Its Impact
Melina Palmer: First, I want to talk about Parkinson’s Law, which is slightly different than, but.
Melina Palmer: Very much related to bikeshedding and the Law of Triviality.
Melina Palmer: Parkinson’s Law states that work will expand.
Melina Palmer: To fit the amount of time allocated to it.
Melina Palmer: This explains why no matter what time you get up in the morning, you.
Melina Palmer: Always tend to leave or get to.
Melina Palmer: Work at same time. For those of us who say we work great under a deadline, this law is a big reason for that. If you have all the time in the world to get something done, you’ll procrastinate and get distracted and it’ll take forever. When it’s due in four hours, magically.
Melina Palmer: You can bust it out and complete the entire project.
Melina Palmer: Episodes and articles are a great example.
Melina Palmer: Of this in my business. In general, podcast episodes take me an.
Melina Palmer: Average of 8 hours to research, write and record. That doesn’t include editing, show notes, reviewing the episode, and things like that, as.
Melina Palmer: This is done by a separate entity. Shout out to Pro Podcast Solutions. Some episodes take less time than that.
Melina Palmer: But in general it was a pretty.
Melina Palmer: Standard time frame for the better part of the first two years of the show. Now that the world of coronavirus has severely impacted my available time to work.
Melina Palmer: On episodes without the kids interrupting, magically they take less time. Similarly, articles take less time to write.
Melina Palmer: And other tasks can be done more.
Melina Palmer: Quickly when I have less time.
Melina Palmer: The quality is still the same in many cases. And interestingly, my column articles have had.
Melina Palmer: Less suggested edits from the editors now that I’m taking less time to write them.
Melina Palmer: Possibly because I’m forcing myself to work.
Melina Palmer: On smaller topics per post, or because of having over 40 of these done now, or due to the benefits of.
Melina Palmer: Succumbing to Parkinson’s Law or some combination of everything.
Melina Palmer: The point is, much like a,
Melina Palmer: Goldfish will grow to the size of.
Melina Palmer: Its bowl, our tasks will take up as much time as we will allow them to take. This is why setting your own internal deadlines through things like time blocking, if that works for you, or using a time timer like I do, can make.
Melina Palmer: A big difference in productivity. I’ve linked to the episode on my favorite tools for organizing your brain, which.
Melina Palmer: Was episode 83 and has quickly skyrocketed to the seventh most downloaded episode of the podcast, as well as my interview with Nir Eyal, author of Indistractable, for.
Melina Palmer: Some more tips on being productive and conquering Parkinson’s Law.
The Subconscious Roots of Bikeshedding
Melina Palmer: Now, how does this apply to Parkinson’s Other Law of Triviality and our concept of bikeshedding?
Melina Palmer: Building on the first law, Parkinson’s Law of Triviality finds that people will waste time focusing on trivial details while ignoring.
Melina Palmer: The bigger, more important problems.
Melina Palmer: And consequently those bigger and more important.
Melina Palmer: Problems end up with less time to be dealt with than what they should.
Melina Palmer: Have and it becomes a disproportionate problem. The term bikeshedding comes from Parkinson’s observation of a committee which had been.
Melina Palmer: Put together to approve plans for a nuclear plant. What Parkinson observed was that the committee.
Melina Palmer: Spent, a disproportionate amount of time.
Melina Palmer: To details that were essentially trivial, specifically the materials for a bicycle storage shed.
Melina Palmer: Which meant they had much less time available to focus on the big project.
Melina Palmer: What they were actually assembled to work.
Melina Palmer: On the design of the nuclear plant. When looking at this as an outside.
Melina Palmer: Observer, it seems absolutely ridiculous. I mean, why would anyone do that? Why would you focus on the bike.
Melina Palmer: Shed when you know that you’re there for the plant?
Melina Palmer: Your brain is likely laughing at their misfortune and thinking, I would never do something so ridiculous.
Melina Palmer: And yet your brain would be wrong.
Melina Palmer: Because it does this constantly.
Melina Palmer: You may call this being a perfectionist, and many of us ambitious folks struggle with this tendency.
Melina Palmer: The thing is, for the most part, people are not suffering from perfectionism in.
Melina Palmer: Every aspect and possible decision in their life and business.
Melina Palmer: They tend to get hung up on.
Melina Palmer: Really tiny details that don’t matter so much in the long run.
Melina Palmer: The question is, why do those things.
Melina Palmer: Get so much of your attention? Why do they feel so important in.
Melina Palmer: The moment and like you can’t move forward until they’re dealt with?
Melina Palmer: More often than not, this is because.
Melina Palmer: Your brain is bikeshedding and essentially avoiding a more important topic that’s either related or unrelated that makes it seem scared or nervous.
Melina Palmer: Let’s say you want to rebrand your.
Melina Palmer: Business or start a business and you’re.
Melina Palmer: Trying to find the perfect layout for your logo.
Melina Palmer: You’re looking at tons of options and.
Melina Palmer: Trying to find the perfect shade of.
Melina Palmer: Blue and considering what that means to the consumer and then comparing it all 57 different ways and asking for feedback that you don’t really take into account.
Melina Palmer: And spiraling for weeks or months because.
Melina Palmer: You can’t possibly launch the brand until.
Melina Palmer: This thing is figured out. That logo matters, you say.
Melina Palmer: It’s the first thing people will see and it needs to be perfect before.
Melina Palmer: Before you move on to the next thing on your list. You know, the business plan or other.
Melina Palmer: Really important strategic initiatives to getting that business moving. Yes, logos matter. I’ve talked about branding on the show quite a bit, and I’ve talked about color theory and those are all well and good, but when they are used.
Melina Palmer: As a procrastination tool to keep you.
Melina Palmer: Stuck, they’re not worth it. Guess what? You can change a logo. You can change colors and update websites and change copy.
Melina Palmer: The consequences of picking the wrong shade.
Melina Palmer: Of blue in your logo just aren’t that big, and the mistake could be.
Melina Palmer: Fixed relatively easily down the road if need be.
Melina Palmer: But launch without a business plan, or with a bad one you threw together at the last minute that can cause.
Melina Palmer: You some serious problems and mean less revenue if you aren’t charging enough, or.
Melina Palmer: If you haven’t thought through how you’re going to cross sell things, or how.
Melina Palmer: All the aspects of the business come together. Getting the business plan wrong could mean.
Melina Palmer: Going under, and if you had to.
Melina Palmer: Put money down, you’re going to be losing an investment.
Melina Palmer: Or if you quit your job for no reason. It’s a big deal. It matters, and that makes it scary to the brain, especially if you’re needing to leave your current state of status quo to enter this new uncertain territory.
Melina Palmer: Which is the case more often than not.
Melina Palmer: Your brain really hates that idea, so.
Melina Palmer: It’Ll make other things seem more important.
Melina Palmer: Than they are to keep you dwelling on them and therefore stuck in the status quo.
Melina Palmer: It loves so much. Essentially, your subconscious brain is the ultimate narcissist. It has an inflated sense of self.
Melina Palmer: Thinking itself to be superior to everyone.
Melina Palmer: Else, including your own conscious brain.
Melina Palmer: It will charm its way into getting.
Melina Palmer: What it wants and use smoke and.
Melina Palmer: Mirrors to make you think something is of the utmost importance when in the long run, it’s all a ruse.
Melina Palmer: Overcoming bikeshedding is sometimes a battle with yourself and your brain’s natural tendencies.
Melina Palmer: It takes conscious effort to say, no, that’s not important right now.
Melina Palmer: And you can only do that if.
Melina Palmer: You know your goals and take the time to prioritize what matters.
Melina Palmer: When you don’t have a plan, your.
Melina Palmer: Subconscious can run rampant and decide what.
Melina Palmer: It wants you to focus on, and its priorities don’t align with your conscious goals. There are so many examples of this.
Melina Palmer: In business and areas where overcoming bikeshedding.
Melina Palmer: Can help you to be more successful.
Melina Palmer: Tackling Parkinson’s Law of Triviality can help with time management, resource allocation, project management, project planning, and general direction for your work, business and life.
Melina Palmer: Here are some specific examples of how this could appear in business.
Melina Palmer: We’ve all done them to help you.
Common Bikeshedding Examples in Business
Melina Palmer: Think about this your own work.
Melina Palmer: Maybe you’ve said things like, I can’t.
Melina Palmer: Start my business until I decide on the perfect name.
Melina Palmer: Or I can’t write that article until I have the catchiest title. I can’t pitch that outlet until I’ve.
Melina Palmer: Got the perfect story. We can’t sell a course until it’s.
Melina Palmer: Been created and perfected. There’s no reason to actually start the website project until I find the perfect template.
Melina Palmer: Let me scroll through these 85,000 options. If I want to be a thought.
Melina Palmer: Leader, I need to be active on social media. Let me spend hours and hours on social seeing what everyone else is doing to perfect my plan. Or I would love to have a scheduling software to make it easier for people to book times with me.
Melina Palmer: But until I research every single one.
Melina Palmer: In detail, I can’t know the best option.
Melina Palmer: And it’s important to pick the perfect one.
Melina Palmer: You get the idea, right? We all do these things. It’s keeping us, stuck. Here are the truths your subconscious doesn’t.
Melina Palmer: Want you to know. Having a good name for your business.
Melina Palmer: Is important, but it isn’t everything. When I first launched this business as.
Melina Palmer: A freelancer, it was just Melina Young Consulting.
Melina Palmer: And when I got married, I changed.
Melina Palmer: It to Melina Palmer Consulting.
Melina Palmer: And it stayed as that for a while until I came up with the name of Defying Gravity for brands that soar a name and A brand that I loved, by the way, but I had to give it up when it.
Melina Palmer: Didn’t fit and it was time to launch the podcast.
Melina Palmer: So I had to rebrand again and found what I think is now the.
Melina Palmer: Perfect name and iteration for the company.
Melina Palmer: That I can keep in the long term of The Brainy Business. If I had waited until I knew exactly what would work or felt perfect.
Melina Palmer: None of it would have happened. Getting started under a generic name meant.
Melina Palmer: I could test out what I wanted.
Melina Palmer: To do and what people would pay for, and the name evolved over time.
Melina Palmer: There are some really crazy names out there and a great product, service or.
Melina Palmer: Idea can overcome a, less than perfect name.
Melina Palmer: It’s most important to see what the fit is. Just get moving, get started, and you can go back and revisit those things later. And actually I started my business without a website. I don’t think I had a website in the first two to three years.
Melina Palmer: Of being in business.
Melina Palmer: It was all based on referrals and I had plenty of business keeping things.
Melina Palmer: Moving along the way.
Melina Palmer: So knowing that sometimes you just jump on in and move forward.
Melina Palmer: Let’s move on to the second point here, which was about not being able.
Melina Palmer: To write the article until you have the perfect title, or pitching the media outlet until you know exactly what they’re wanting in extreme detail to make sure you’re perfectly hitting the mark and this is just not going to work in your favor. You will have some misses, sure, but.
Melina Palmer: You just have to start swinging for these things.
Melina Palmer: Just try for things, follow up on things, reach out on things, do some research so you don’t look ridiculous. But pick your top outlet or 10 and send some personalized pitches, Find who’s been writing or find the editor and connect with them, on Twitter and just have a conversation and eventually you can pitch the concept. Knowing that titles are actually one of the last things to be completed for articles and books. And it’s not always this way, but.
Melina Palmer: More often than not this is the way it works. Getting those ideas out and testing titles.
Melina Palmer: Later on is going to be more impactful for you and can help you get the thought out of your head and get moving.
Melina Palmer: See if somebody’s interested in the general.
Melina Palmer: Concept, if you can explain it in.
Melina Palmer: A couple of sentences as to how.
Melina Palmer: It relates back to their outlet, why their readers are going to like it, and you can narrow in on the title later. You can also easily change a title when you know the content is good and it resonates. Say if you were writing articles for your blog or I went through recently and updated a bunch of the names.
Melina Palmer: Of past episodes of the podcast to.
Melina Palmer: Make them into a way that I.
Melina Palmer: Felt was more compelling.
Melina Palmer: And they’ve been getting a lot more clicks. You can also tweak the way you talk about it on social media if you’re stuck with a title like the ones I write for Inc Magazine, and once the title is published, that’s the title. You know, kind of stuck with those. But I can talk about it differently in the way that I share it. Encouraging someone to go and click and read, but knowing that if I had waited until I knew exactly what INC was looking for and that they wanted someone to be posting on behavioral economics before I pitched them on it, it never would have happened and or, you know, somebody else would have gotten that opportunity. So putting yourself out there, getting over that bikeshedding is really important in.
Melina Palmer: Taking advantage of opportunities that you may.
Melina Palmer: Not know exist yet.
Melina Palmer: It’s the same with courses.
Melina Palmer: You don’t want to perfect a course and spend hours and days of your time agonizing over it when you don’t know if people actually want it. Sometimes it’s best to come up with.
Melina Palmer: An idea and a brief outline for.
Melina Palmer: A course or two and pre sell.
Melina Palmer: Them to see if anybody buys. And if they do, then you can create it. When you know it’s going to be.
Melina Palmer: A winner and you’ve already gotten some.
Melina Palmer: Money in from it, it helps to.
Melina Palmer: Motivate you to work as well and.
Melina Palmer: Creates those deadlines to help you overcome.
Melina Palmer: Parkinson’s First Law and avoid your bikeshedding tendencies of dwelling over the perfect content. It’s the same with websites.
Melina Palmer: If you’re using something with a template.
Melina Palmer: Those are usually set up to easily transfer between layouts. Layouts I’ve done a lot of work with websites and other layouts over the years for advertisements and billboards and all sorts of things. And just almost 100% of the time.
Melina Palmer: Every business person struggles with the concept.
Melina Palmer: Of coming up with the content first and the design later.
Melina Palmer: This is a fundamental point of conflict.
Melina Palmer: Between someone asking for a layout and.
Melina Palmer: The designer who’s creating that layout.
Melina Palmer: I’m pretty sure every designer I have.
Melina Palmer: Ever worked with has said something along.
Melina Palmer: The lines of give me the content and I’ll give you a layout. And every person who wants the layout will say show me a mockup and I’ll write the content to fit feels counterintuitive, but in business you gotta write the content first, come up with a plan and write it all out with.
Melina Palmer: The least amount of words possible and.
Melina Palmer: Your designer can come up with something great to fit that content. They can then ask for edits if needed. But tackling the bigger problem of the content is more important than the perfect template.
Overcoming Bikeshedding: Practical Questions
Melina Palmer: Similarly, on the example of the scheduling.
Melina Palmer: Software or scrolling through social media as research for hours on end, it’s procrastination.
Melina Palmer: To keep from doing the hard and scary stuff.
Melina Palmer: And this highlights the worst part about bikeshedding. Because it’s your own brain putting up.
Melina Palmer: The smokescreen, the thing you’re productively procrastinating.
Melina Palmer: With will feel like it’s the most important thing in the world.
Melina Palmer: You don’t feel like you’re doing anything wrong.
Melina Palmer: It feels like you’re doing the best possible thing to invest in yourself and your business. Your subconscious is going to ensure you.
Melina Palmer: Believe that lie to meet its own needs.
Melina Palmer: If you don’t stop and say is.
Melina Palmer: This helping me reach my goal?
Melina Palmer: Or maybe is this really important in the long run? It could hold you up for much longer than is valuable for you. And essentially you’re building a bikeshed.
Melina Palmer: Instead of focusing on the nuclear plant. Something that from a distance you can see looks ridiculous if someone else was.
Melina Palmer: Doing that in their business. But when it’s you, you just believe with every fiber of your being that.
Melina Palmer: You’Re doing the right thing.
Melina Palmer: Because it’s. It’s your subconscious telling you it’s important. And if you don’t stop and question it, you’re just never going to naturally get there. It’s really difficult to do if you’re not intentionally moving past that bikeshedding. There are a few ways to look at whatever thing you’re stressing over and overcome your bikeshedding problem.
Melina Palmer: Here are some questions to consider, which.
Melina Palmer: Are outlined on that freebie worksheet I’ve created for you. First question Will I even remember this.
Melina Palmer: Five years from now?
Melina Palmer: This could also be pulled back to a much shorter time frame depending on.
Melina Palmer: The problem at hand. Maybe it’s just if this is going.
Melina Palmer: To matter five days from now.
Melina Palmer: In many cases when you are bikeshedding.
Melina Palmer: You will have moved on to a new small problem to agonize over once you finish with this one. If you remember from earlier in the episode I had said that the bikeshedding.
Melina Palmer: The small thing you’re dwelling on.
Melina Palmer: Might be completely unrel goal that you’re trying to avoid, that your subconscious is trying to keep you distracted from. So you’re very likely going to move.
Melina Palmer: From small problem to small problem to.
Melina Palmer: Small problem to small problem and never get to that goal when bikeshedding is really at, the root of what you’re doing, avoiding that bigger goal and keeping that status quo means there’s just always going to be something to dwell on. So if you don’t have goals that you’re prioritizing toward, that you can recenter on, and I’ll get to that in.
Melina Palmer: One of these future questions here in.
Melina Palmer: Just a second, then it just, you’re never going to get out of that vicious cycle.
Navigating Feedback and Personal Goals
Melina Palmer: The next question is looking at the impact.
Melina Palmer: A question for this could be, what’s the consequence if I get it wrong? This means if you pick the wrong shade of blue for your logo, or.
Melina Palmer: Buy the brown shoes instead of the.
Melina Palmer: Black ones, or donate a sweater when you’re downsizing or, or move forward with a certain scheduling software or website template, or pitch the media outlet or all the other things in the world, what happens if you made the wrong choice? What’s the worst possible outcome of the choice? And realistic worst case scenarios here only no saying that the butterfly effect could make it so. Your choice of the wrong blue causes a tsunami on the other side of the world. Think truly. If you pick a blue and end up hating it, can you change it? If you find out that you wish you had black shoes instead of brown ones, can you return the ones you bought? Or do you know it’s a lesson learned and you get to go shoe shopping again? If you get rid of the sweater and wish you still had it, or another purple sweater, can you find a replacement? If you pick a template or scheduling software and hate it, you learn something.
Melina Palmer: And you can move on.
Melina Palmer: If you pitch the media outlet and get rejected or don’t hear back, which happens a lot even with really great pitches, you got some practice and maybe.
Melina Palmer: Learn something for the next one.
Melina Palmer: If the real consequence is big, then it’s worth spending more time on. If it’s essentially inconsequential, it’s likely bikeshedding and better to make a decision and move on. This is where done is better than perfect kicks in. You gotta move forward to keep from going backwards. And I used to tell my designers this all the time, that you could sit and nitpick and fiddle and, keep going tiny, tiny tweaks until it’s perfect.
Melina Palmer: But it will never be perfect.
Melina Palmer: You’ll never be happy with that thing you’re designing, the thing you’re working on, because it’s just about trying to reach that tiny bit better. That’s not going to give you the big payout in the long run.
Melina Palmer: So the next question you can ask is going to be getting back to your goals and you can say, is.
Melina Palmer: This decision helping me reach my goals.
Melina Palmer: Or keeping me from them? This is where really narrow goals and tactics underneath those goals are important.
Melina Palmer: Finding out if dwelling on this decision.
Melina Palmer: Will really help you better achieve the goal at hand, or if it’s just keeping you in status quo for longer is important in moving forward. Getting back to something Nir Eyal talks about in his book Indistractable, which I’ve.
Melina Palmer: Already referenced once in the episode and.
Melina Palmer: As I said, is linked for you. The episode of my interview with him is linked in the show notes here for this episode. The opposite of distraction is traction.
Melina Palmer: And until you know what you’re working.
Melina Palmer: Toward, you don’t really know what is a distraction from that goal and what is actually going to be helping you to move forward.
Melina Palmer: So narrowing those goals, knowing what’s important.
Melina Palmer: Is necessary to understand if it’s a distraction or traction, if it’s bikeshedding or it’s dwelling on the right problems.
Melina Palmer: Having an accountability buddy that you trust can be really helpful in this case.
Melina Palmer: And why it is important to get out of your own head. Sometimes you might need someone else to shine light on something to see how silly it really is. Like where we can objectively look at the bikeshed and the nuclear plant problem and see that it’s ridiculous, but when it’s our own small problem, we can’t really see it. However, there is a very serious caveat to this point.
Melina Palmer: You want to be in whatever this.
Melina Palmer: Is for you and don’t ask a ton of people for their advice on every little problem that you have. You of course have other people in your life who are impacted by the decisions you make. It’s important to consider those people in the ways they’re going to be impacted.
Melina Palmer: And sometimes you need to make joint.
Melina Palmer: Decisions with people, whether they’re work decisions.
Melina Palmer: And you need to consider other departments.
Melina Palmer: Bosses or employees, or personal life decisions where you need to consider your significant other or friends or family members. However, many people who get sucked into bikeshedding are too worried about what other people think and are trying to please others with their decisions instead of doing what would make them happy or.
Melina Palmer: Help them achieve their own goals.
Melina Palmer: And again, this is because your subconscious knows that it’s going to help you spiral and and stay stuck.
Melina Palmer: So if the debate in your mind.
Melina Palmer: Is what will Susie say if she finds out I chose X or I know Matt wants me to get Y so I should probably do that then your bikeshedding may be telling you.
Melina Palmer: Something important and that is to listen.
Melina Palmer: To you, what you want, what will make you happy, and what will help.
Melina Palmer: You reach your goals.
Melina Palmer: Other people are important and I’m not.
Melina Palmer: Giving blanket advice to ignore everyone and stomp all over their knees.
Melina Palmer: But what I am saying is that you are the only constant in your life. What makes you happy and feeling fulfilled.
Melina Palmer: Is central to you.
Melina Palmer: And you just shouldn’t make all your effort be about other people’s opinions. Your job can change, your life status can change, your relationships can change. And knowing, like I said, you’re the only thing that’s constant in your life. And I I am someone who has made a lot of changes. I’ve been divorced, I’ve left a really great job to start a business. I have launched into a master’s program and graduated from that obviously, and then changed direction in my business multiple times. And I’ve moved around. There’s a lot that goes into kind of knowing what is central to you and understanding your own goals and kind of overcoming them. This I’ve been there. I don’t need to dig into that here on the podcast, but if you had, you know, questions or advice on some of that, obviously you can reach out to me. Send me an email Melina@thebrainybusiness.com but as it turns out, people are more likely to give their opinion and make it seem like they really care and know a lot about things that are essentially bikeshedding. When you say that you’re considering switching laundry soap and your best friend or.
Melina Palmer: Mom or sister or coworker gives you.
Melina Palmer: A big lecture about why that’s a terrible decision. Or if you say you want to start a keto diet or train for a marathon and someone tells you why that’s a stupid idea and then goes on about how bad it would be and why you shouldn’t, that is about their bikeshedding more than it’s about your happiness.
Melina Palmer: Your brain preference to focus on trivial.
Melina Palmer: Stuff instead of big stuff is not.
Melina Palmer: Limited to your own trivial problem problems. It can also easily and happily consume.
Melina Palmer: Itself with everyone else’s trivial junk and want to make all those things into.
Melina Palmer: A big deal when they really aren’t. And of course, everyone else’s brain is doing the same thing, which is compelling them to weigh in on your small.
Melina Palmer: Choice and make it seem like a.
Melina Palmer: Big deal so they have something to.
Melina Palmer: Distract them from whatever big decision their subconscious is avoiding. And now I want to put out my disclaimer, none of those people are bad.
Melina Palmer: And if you have a tendency to.
Melina Palmer: Make a big deal out of other people’s problems, you aren’t bad either. We are wired to do this, but we can also stop it and be much happier with just a little bit of effort. The lesson here is not to ask for other people’s input if it’s a.
Melina Palmer: Bikeshedding problem or if their opinion will not coincide well with your goals and happiness.
Melina Palmer: If you know you want to quit your job and start a business, don’t.
Melina Palmer: Ask people in your life who think.
Melina Palmer: Entrepreneurship is dumb what their opinion is.
Melina Palmer: If you want to try a keto.
Melina Palmer: Diet and are really excited about it.
Melina Palmer: What do you benefit from asking your.
Melina Palmer: Carb loving friends for their input? Get balanced feedback, but also consider Do.
Melina Palmer: I feel the need to ask this.
Melina Palmer: Question because my subconscious wants to put it off and knows that this person’s feedback will keep me stuck and spinning? If the answer is yes, don’t ask and know that that is okay.
Conclusion: Embracing Action Over Procrastination
Melina Palmer: So here is where we end up.
Melina Palmer: Bikeshedding is an ongoing problem, which.
Melina Palmer: Makes it so your brain wants to focus on little inconsequential details, and it’s.
Melina Palmer: Very good at tricking you into thinking they more important than they are. So you never have the time to.
Melina Palmer: Tackle the big stuff that would move you forward toward your goals and shift the status quo that your subconscious loves so much. And even if you adamantly feel something.
Melina Palmer: Matters and can’t imagine not taking a.
Melina Palmer: Very long time to evaluate it, it doesn’t mean it’s actually of consequence in.
Melina Palmer: The grand scheme of things.
Melina Palmer: And right now, now in our environment where our brains are kind of on.
Melina Palmer: Overdrive from all the change and things.
Melina Palmer: Going on, we have a lot of small stuff that we can be getting our stress out on and thinking about. And really bikeshedding all these areas of our life when it feels like you’re able to focus on that thing because there’s a lot of other scary stuff in the changes that are around us. So your brain is going to be really prone to bikeshedding right now if you’re not careful.
Melina Palmer: So getting really good at challenging your.
Melina Palmer: Own norms and points of dwelling is important to overcoming bikeshedding. And work on the things that really matter.
Melina Palmer: Ask those questions outlined in the episode, which are also written out for you.
Melina Palmer: On your freebie worksheet, and just take time to stop and take a step back. Simply saying is this My bikeshed could be enough and you’ll get better at this over time. You’ll never be completely free of bikeshedding Remember Parkinson’s First Law that things take up as much room as you allow them to occupy, so you’re still.
Melina Palmer: Going to procrastinate from time to time. It happens.
Melina Palmer: And do forgive yourself for that, knowing it’s part of all of our natures. But when it really matters, when there.
Melina Palmer: Are goals on the line and dreams.
Melina Palmer: To be living, and knowing that bikeshedding just creates a stressful, unpleasant experience that you don’t even have to live in, there really isn’t an upside to living in that space. Bikeshedding makes you feel worse and you don’t achieve your goals. To put it another way, the juice definitely isn’t worth the squeeze.
Melina Palmer: To take that analogy a step further.
Melina Palmer: It’S like having your favorite beverage in the fridge that you could drink at any time, and we’ll say it’s inconsequential. Maybe it’s a, magic elixir that you also love the taste of. And instead of choosing to just drink the glass of beverage that you already have that you know you love, you decide to go out and pick a.
Melina Palmer: Bushel of limes and then take hours.
Melina Palmer: To painstakingly chop and squeeze them so you can drink straight lime juice with no sugar that you hate. Just to prove your subconscious brain’s point. It takes a little training, but very quickly the juice you get from the tiny bit of effort to stop bikeshedding will be totally worth its squeeze.
Melina Palmer: So what got your brain buzzing as you learned about bikeshedding today? For me, the reminder is this. Your brain isn’t trying to sabotage you when it leads you to obsess over the small stuff. It’s trying to protect you from discomfort and that fear of the unknown.
Melina Palmer: But.
Melina Palmer: But when we name it and reframe it, we can push past that reflex and get back to what really matters so we can show up in our best way.
Melina Palmer: We can grow and change in the.
Melina Palmer: Ways that we really, really want to, what we strive to do and accomplish. And I have to say, giving my TEDx talk, there’s nothing Magical About Monday gave me a whole new appreciation for just how sneaky this brain trick can be. In the talk, I share the story of Jen, a fictional version of all of us who gets totally derailed by many things. Including, of course, that bikeshed of productive procrastination. It has been amazing how many people have reached out from around the world since seeing the talk and saying how much this idea of bikeshedding resonates with them. People who say, oh my gosh, that is so me. Or I’VE always been so hard on myself for that, but I’m so glad.
Melina Palmer: To hear it’s a real thing.
Melina Palmer: Thing if you want to better understand.
Melina Palmer: How your brain delays progress under the guise of preparation, you gotta watch it again. It’s called There’s Nothing Magical About Monday. You can find it on YouTube. And of course there’s a link waiting for you in the show notes along with my top related past episodes and books, ways to connect and more.
Next Episode Preview
Melina Palmer: It’s all within the app you’re listening to and at thebrainybusiness.com/532 and just like that, episode 532 on bikeshedding is done. Join me Thursday for a brand new episode with Louis Grenier all about standing out in a sea. of sameness. No beige strategies here. It’s going to be a lot of fun. You don’t want to miss it. Until then, thanks again for listening and learning with me. And remember to be thoughtful.
Announcer: Thank you for listening to The Brainy Business Podcast. Melina offers virtual strategy sessions, workshops and other services to help businesses be more brain friendly. For more free resources, visit thebrainybusiness.com.
