For a while now I've been telling people to talk less, do more. It doesn't matter if it's a startup with 2 people or a company with 10,000 - when teams and team members dig into solutions without trying anything, it's all opinions and theory. I like to get those into action, as soon as something seems like it could work.

More times than I care to admit, I wrote "Action over Discussion" on the board, in emails, chat, anytime I had a chance to remind others to Get Stuff Done (GSD). Then I started working on it a bit more pointedly into literally Action / Discussion. Keeping focus is also a huge part of getting things done, as well as doing the smallest effort with the biggest impact. I finally landed on what I call, the GSD index.

Breaking this down

Action over discussion

This is meant to limit the discussions, the solutioning and other "thought work" that goes into a problem. Some discussion is certainly needed (you can't divide by zero after all!) but it's meant to limit those discussions to meaningful, actionable things that might work. Then either try it now, or come up with multiple options. Don't mistake this for convincing others or campaigning an idea -- there's a good chance 10 things will work, 3 of them might be better but look out for the point counter-point game.

People over WIP

When there are tons of things in progress, nothing ever gets done and yet everyone seems very busy. Multitasking doesn't work, so keep focused by limiting Work in Progress (WIP).

Impact over Effort

Consider this optional.

This plays to prioritization and solving a problem with the littlest effort - it's also the hardest thing to quantify. Sometimes you won't know until far after a thing is completed so use some educated guesses (that means with data, not feelings hopes and dreams)