4.4.2025 - Why important stuff stalls - the root cause you're overlooking

Ralph Perrine -

Its ironic how often truly important stuff stalls - and how often we mistakenly think it's because we don't have time.

S3T Podcast April 4
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🎧 Listen here or on Spotify

In this Issue

🚀 When important stuff stalls: 3 Tweaks to Unlock Action
1️⃣ Identity – Be the person who does it
2️⃣ Emotional connection – Feel the future now
3️⃣ Momentum – Start with a friction-free trigger
These unlock follow-through and make your most important goals second nature.

📉 Transitory Inflation 2.0
Powell revives the term “transitory” to describe tariff-driven inflation, while Goldman Sachs lowers S&P 500 targets and raises recession odds.

🤖 AI & Robots in the Workforce
From robot dogs with digital nervous systems to GenAI prompting skills, the future of work is shifting. But employees aren’t ready—less than 10% are GenAI-proficient.

⚙️ Institutional Doubts & Tech Hype
Should AI run the government? Some call it magical thinking. Meanwhile, GenAI agents are falling short in reliability and interoperability, per CB Insights.

🧠 Why We Don’t Follow Through (Even When It Matters)
Smart people still procrastinate key priorities. It’s not about time—it’s about energy, emotion, and identity.

[macro-economics]

📈Transitory inflation 2.0

[emerging tech]

🤖AI as a teammate

[perspective]


🪞Why important stuff stalls - the root cause you're overlooking

I regularly meet people who are smart, conscientious, and doing amazing work - BUT inevitably there's something that they feel terrible about. It's an important project or task that keeps getting pushed off into the future. They're almost embarrassed to admit how long this has been dragging out, and still not done. Or still not even started.

Is there something like this in your list of goals? If so, I'm going to share something that will help. You are not alone or unusual. This is common. And it twists us up because it's paradoxical...like we can't understand why this one thing that we acknowledge is really important to us - just isn't getting done. And it happens to everyone, even highly successful individuals.

We all have things we know we need to do— key actions that will help us grow our business, clear the path for innovation, reset our portfolio or org structure, or - on a personal level - improve our health, or strengthen key relationships.

We might even add these very important items to our to-do lists or block out time on our calendar. Or tell ourselves we're going to do this by x date. But somehow, these important activities still get crowded out.

The False Remedy: More Time

We often conclude that the important things aren't getting done because we don't have enough time. We tell ourselves "we need more time" or "we just need to make time" as if we can add new hours to the day. While its true that time boxing and scheduling is an important skill, there's also something else that we often lose sight of:

Work is elastic. The amount of time it takes to complete a task can vary widely. The amount of time it takes to do a specific task can vary depending on:

  • Your energy level
  • Your mental alertness
  • Your proficiency: top-of-mind knowledge based on doing this kind of task recently and repeatedly.
  • Whether or not you have the right tool for the job. This was always true, but it's going to be exponentially true as AI agents become day to day working teammates.

All this to say, if important things aren't getting done even when you schedule them, then we need to dig deeper than "finding the time." The root cause has nothing to do with time. Making a list priorities is great, setting blocks of time for tasks is great, but if you want to unleash your full potential, read on.

3 Tweaks to Turn Your Priorities into Effective Action

Simply making to-do's or scheduling a task isn’t enough. There are 3 tweaks you can make to turn your priority tasks into action.

1️⃣ Identity: Become the Kind of Person Who Does This Regularly

  • Instead of thinking of an action as something you should do, integrate it into your self-concept. Think of yourself as someone who does this.
  • Example: Instead of saying, “I need to exercise more,” reframe it as “I am a person who prioritizes my health and movement daily.”
  • You may think this is silly, but it works. When a behavior is part of your identity, consistency follows naturally.

2️⃣ Emotional Connection: Visualize the Future Benefits as If They’re Already Happening

  • We prioritize what we feel deeply connected to.
  • Regularly spend time visualizing the outcome—not just in an abstract way, but in a vivid, personal way that excites you.
  • Example: If your goal is to market your product more consistently, don’t just schedule time for it. Instead, imagine the feeling of seeing new customers excited about what you offer, hearing their success stories, and watching your business grow.
  • When you connect emotionally to the future result, it shifts from a “should” to a “must.”

3️⃣ Momentum & Commitment Ritual: Attach the Activity to a Small, Unskippable Trigger

  • The hardest part of any habit is starting.
  • Design a tiny activation ritual—something so small that it eliminates the friction of getting started.
  • Example: If you struggle to follow through on building relationships with investors, commit to sending just one short email or message each morning before checking social media.
  • If you want to work out more, start with putting on your workout clothes immediately after waking up (and laying them out the night before so you can grab them when you first wake up). Often, a small first step will lead naturally into the full activity.

Why These 3 Tweaks are so effective

✅ When something becomes part of your identity, you don’t need external motivation—you do it because it’s who you are.
✅ When you emotionally connect to the outcome, you stop negotiating with yourself.
✅ When you eliminate friction by using small activation rituals, you remove the biggest barrier: starting.

How to Apply This Today

For any goal that keeps slipping, ask yourself:
1️⃣ Who is the kind of person that does this consistently? (Identity)
2️⃣ How will I feel once I’ve followed through? (Emotional Connection)
3️⃣ What’s my unskippable trigger to start? (Momentum)

Once you internalize these three elements, your most important actions stop feeling like tasks—and start becoming second nature.

Build your personal effectiveness and time management skills with these lessons from the Change Leadership Learning Series:

  • Making time - Leading change takes extra time - here's a proven way to maximize what you can do with your available time.
  • Layers of work - Instead of seeing life as a futile quest for focus time, Layers gives you a proven way to orchestrate your focus more effectively. 
  • 5 Building blocks for good planning habits - How to build daily, weekly, and monthly planning habits that take you toward your goals.

Click here for an overview of the full Change Leadership Learning Series.

[panoramas]

Thank you for reading, sharing and recommending S3T! Have a great weekend, and a great week ahead!

Opinions expressed are those of the individuals and do not reflect the official positions of companies or organizations those individuals may be affiliated with. Not financial, investment or legal advice, and no offers for securities or investment opportunities are intended. Mentions should not be construed as endorsements. Authors or guests may hold assets discussed or may have interests in companies mentioned.