Thought Vs Action

Both thought and action are important for wanting to be productive, but which is more important, and how much time should you be spending on each of them?

It can be hard to juggle the two qualities together, with one being pushed to the sideline more than the other.

When it comes to thought vs action, a large majority of people will rely more heavily upon one than the other. One group of people will say that action is the best course to go down - because if you don't act then you'll never get anything done.

The second group of people will say, thought and planning is essential for wanting to take the most efficient, effective, and unproblematic route - "If you fail to plan, you plan to fail".

Whilst both of these schools of thoughts have merit in what they're saying, I tend to disagree with relying upon one more heavily than the other. This isn't to say that success in certain fields can't be achieved with reliance upon either action or thought and less on the other. However, it would make more sense to apply a 50/50 approach.

When I say 50/50, you may be thinking that you put more time into actually acting out a task, then that must mean that you're relying more on action. That's not technically the correct assumption to make. True, the action side to things does generally take longer, but I'm not referring to time-length, but to quality. As planning is essential to make sure you take the right actions - then it seems logical to me that you should put some qualitative thought into it. Henry Ford once stated: "Thinking is the hardest work there is, which is probably the reason why so few engage in it".

So when I say 50/50, I am referring to the amount of effort that you put into each. The planning side may take 5 minutes, whilst the acting may take 2 hours (or vice-versa), the point is, if they're both done with intelligence and quality, then this would be a the 50/50 approach I'm meaning, when you tackle thought and action with the same thorough mindset.

Now that may have sounded like I am putting more importance on thought, but that is not the case. Thinking is an incredibly important thing to do and is a hard habit to get used to. Action though, is just as important. After having a brainstorming session, you will need to take action if you ever want to see results. It's through the planning that you can make the right actions, these actions become all the more productive and beneficial, linking the 'thinking' and the 'doing' together.

A lot of times, actions vs thought discussions often refer to the two as being separate. But we need to remember that they are both linked together and are meant to run harmoniously and in unison. They are both one side of a coin, so to take one side over another wouldn't be smart, and would in a sense be irrational.

I like the quote of Napoleon Bonaparte: “Take time to deliberate; but when the time for action arrives, stop thinking and go in.”

Another quote that I think is appropriate is by an unknown author who said: "Planning without action is futile, action without planning is fatal".