Hi this is Ray,

I once spent three hours “preparing” to learn guitar by… shopping for the perfect guitar pick. Not practicing chords. Not strumming. Just researching thickness, material, and whether it should glow in the dark (because nothing says “future rock legend” like a pick you can’t lose under the couch).

Spoiler alert: I never became Slash. I barely became the guy who knows three chords. Why? Because I fell into the trap a lot of us do when we want to learn something new… trying to optimize everything before I even start.

And that, my friends, is one of the greatest enemies of actual learning.

So let’s talk about why you don’t need to optimize everything before you start, how science backs up the power of “messy action,” and why your learning journey might actually look more like a Dungeons & Dragons campaign gone off the rails than a neatly color-coded planner.

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The Optimization Mirage

Optimization feels amazing. It tricks your brain into thinking you’re doing something useful. Setting up folders, choosing the right highlighter palette, downloading five apps you’ll never use… these all create the illusion of productivity.

But illusions are the Dark Side of learning (cue Darth Vader breathing). Research in psychology even has a name for it: preparation procrastination. It’s when the act of getting ready replaces the act of doing. Studies on procrastination have found that the anticipation of discomfort makes us invent endless prep steps to avoid it .

Translation: sharpening 20 pencils feels safer than actually writing the essay.

Why Action Beats Perfection

Here’s the secret sauce: your brain learns more from doing badly than from planning perfectly.

Cognitive science calls this desirable difficulty. When you struggle… when things are messy, awkward, and incomplete, your brain actually encodes information more deeply. Struggle forces retrieval, which strengthens memory .

Think about it like playing Legend of Zelda. Nobody waits to read a 200-page guidebook before fighting their first Bokoblin. They grab a wooden sword, stumble into battle, and learn by getting smacked around a bit. Each hit teaches you timing, strategy, and that maybe running in circles screaming isn’t an optimal combat style (don’t ask how I know).

The False God of Systems

Don’t get me wrong: I love systems. I once spent two weeks building the “perfect” Notion template for my language studies… and then abandoned Spanish after day three because my system was too overwhelming.

The truth is, systems matter later. They’re like side quests in a video game. Super useful for leveling up, but irrelevant if you haven’t started the main quest. A 2020 meta-analysis of self-regulated learning found that the biggest predictor of success wasn’t the sophistication of the system, but whether learners simply began and kept going .

In other words: Level 1 action > Level 99 spreadsheet.

Minimum Viable Learning Setup

Instead of building Hogwarts before you’ve learned Wingardium Leviosa, aim for what I call the Minimum Viable Learning Setup (MVLS).

Here’s how it works:

1. Start with just one resource. Pick a single book, course, or tutorial. No need for 27 tabs open.

2. Set a micro-goal. Learn for 10 minutes. Not an hour. Not a day. Just 10 minutes.

3. Mess it up gloriously. Try, fail, laugh, repeat.

4. Adjust later. Once you’ve built momentum, then refine. Add flashcards, notes, or study hacks if you see they’ll actually help.

This approach works because it lowers the barrier to entry. And once you’ve started, momentum takes care of the rest.

The Myth of the Perfect Start

I get it… We want the perfect conditions before we begin. The perfect time, the perfect desk, the perfect app. But the truth is, there’s no such thing.

The 2020 pandemic proved this when millions of students and teachers suddenly had to adapt to online learning. No perfect systems. No perfect prep. Just messy improvisation. And yet, learning still happened. Not optimally, but effectively enough to show that imperfect starts can carry real progress.

So maybe the next time you tell yourself, “I’ll start learning when…” replace it with, “I’ll start learning now, badly.”

Because bad starts beat no starts. Every. Single. Time.

Learning is like rolling initiative in Dungeons & Dragons. You don’t wait until you have the perfect dice tower, battle mat, and hand-painted minis before playing. You grab some dice, roll a nat-1, and get mauled by a goblin.

That goblin encounter? That’s your first attempt at coding, or speaking French, or playing piano. Messy. Embarrassing. But essential. Because each failure gives you experience points… and experience points are how you level up.

Optimization is nice. But XP only comes from action.

A Better Mantra

So next time you’re tempted to spend six hours customizing your study playlist, repeat this mantra:

“I don’t need to optimize before I start. I’ll optimize by starting.”

Your future self will thank you. Your current self will cringe a little. And that’s okay. Cringe is part of the process.

If you take one thing away from this, let it be this:

• Start messy.

• Fail fast.

• Refine later.

Because your brain doesn’t care how perfect your system looks in Notion. It cares how often you pick up the metaphorical sword and swing.

So grab the glow-in-the-dark guitar pick if you must… but for the love of Yoda, strum the darn guitar already.

References

1. Sirois, F. M., & Pychyl, T. A. (2013). Procrastination and the priority of short-term mood regulation: Consequences for future self. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 7(2), 115-127. Link

2. Bjork, R. A., & Bjork, E. L. (2011). Making things hard on yourself, but in a good way: Creating desirable difficulties to enhance learning. Psychology and the Real World, 2, 56–64. Link

3. Dent, A. L., & Koenka, A. C. (2016). The relation between self-regulated learning and academic achievement across childhood and adolescence: A meta-analysis. Educational Psychology Review, 28, 425–474. Link