I love that moment when the rain finishes. Everything's green, glistening with water—so peaceful, tranquil. It's like is starting up again.

I want to talk today about one of the most challenging lessons for me (aside from not wearing enough sunscreen and getting sunburned when I surf). It happens whenever I try to learn a new skill.

Whether it's music, surfing, or making these videos, it's so easy for me to get sucked into the process, tools, techniques, and tutorial videos that I end up not actually doing or enjoying the thing I set out to do.

Let me give you a couple examples:

When I learned how to surf, I got a big foam board, went into the water, and got my ass kicked over and over again. I was doing it right.

Then I moved to Santa Cruz. I got to surf every day after work. I was so lucky. But I got this idea in my head that I needed the perfect surfboard. I became fixated on finding the right board and spent 10x more time researching than paddling, doing workouts, or anything like that.

Then I got the board... and I still sucked.

I surfed for a while and started to get good. Then I convinced myself I needed another board for specific conditions. I ended up buying 8 or 9 surfboards, which was ridiculous.

I realized I spent more time researching than actually surfing.

I spent more time researching than actually surfing.

I think it’s just a method of procrastination and distraction.

Another example: I started making music again during the pandemic. I wanted to use hardware synths so everything would be hands-on, with a cool vintage analog sound. But once again, I started researching: what synthesizers should I buy?

I spent hours watching YouTube videos, combing through sites, and ended up with like 7 synthesizers. Classic ones, new ones, sequencers, everything. I had no idea how they all worked. In fact, two of them I barely played and ended up selling because they got no use.

I’m sure other people have this problem. So what do you do about it?

Force yourself to curb distractions

What I’ve been doing recently is cracking down on research. I limit it to the very beginning of a project. And I've been limiting the tools I use. I try to stop myself from going deep into tutorials and YouTube rabbit holes.

I've been making music again and this time I picked three plugins. No more. I use Ableton (which I already know). I’ve used it for 10–12 years. Even though it was tempting to try something new, I stuck with what I know.

I chose one synthesizer: Serum. One reverb plugin: Valhalla VintageVerb. That’s it. Everything else is stock Ableton.

Hold the line on new tools.

I’m not downloading new things. I’m not learning new tools. I constrain myself to a specific set.

Same with surfing. I stopped looking at message boards and browsing surfboards online. I still watch technique videos occasionally, and I do workouts, but I use one board and surf with it. If it breaks, I’m screwed. I don't surf. I don’t have boards for every condition. I just focus on learning that one tool and getting better with it.

Timebox research rabbit holes

The second thing I do is catch myself when I start going down the research rabbit hole.

I have a bad habit of opening five YouTube tabs, queuing them up to watch. It feels good finding them, but after I watch them all, I don’t feel good.

There are exceptions. Tutorials can be useful. But in general, I don’t want to spend hours researching. I limit it to 15–30 minutes, then implement right away.

These two changes have made a huge difference in how I approach skills, sports, and even making these videos.

I chose one editor: Final Cut Pro. I don’t know if it’s the best. Someone said it was good. I didn’t research it much, I just went with it.

I’m not buying expensive video libraries or animations. I’m picking one tool and learning it.

You’ll notice my videos are super raw. There’s a bit of editing, but I’m focused on making content and sharing ideas, not getting bogged down in “if only I had this plugin” or “better motion effects” or “auto captions.”

I cut all of that out. I just sit down and do the thing.

And I’m surprised how hard that is. Every part of me wants to watch videos, learn new techniques, follow accounts that share cool tools... but the reality is that 99% of the time you don’t need that.

You just need to sit down and do the thing.

It takes discipline. It takes focus. And honestly, it’s still hard for me.

But I’ve noticed my happiness and fulfillment increase dramatically. The more I practice this kind of minimalism, sticking to the thing instead of the tools, the more progress I make.

I wanted to share this because I’m sure other people struggle with it.

If you do, drop a note in the comments. If you have techniques or tips, I need them. Please share how you combat this paralysis or distraction around tools and process instead of just doing the thing you set out to do.