Still Procrastinating on Your Project? You Need an MVP (Minimum Viable Product)
The secret to getting sh*t done
Welcome, my fellow procrastinators. That side project you have always wanted to work on, that new programming language or framework you have been planning to learn, that medium blog that you have been meaning to start since forever (oops) …. Despite how much you want to work on that project, you keep pushing it back on your agenda.
The moment you finally sit down and tell yourself, “I can do this”. You start thinking:
“Oh actually…”
“There is something else that’s more important than what I’m doing right now.”
“Let me just go on Facebook to see what memes my friend sent me”.
If that sounds like you, you are at the right place.
My story with procrastination
Growing up I mastered the skill of procrastination without any training at all. I got so good at procrastination that once I had to finish 100 pages of Chinese calligraphy within 24 hours before my first day of Grade 6. Yes, 100 pages for a sixth-grader.
How I was introduced to the idea of MVP
Despite being a life-long skilled procrastinator, I didn’t know what to do about it until I learned about a key product management concept called MVP, which completely transformed the way I deal with procrastination now.
During one of our product planning meetings for the start-up I was interning at, I heard a co-worker say, “In order to compete in this virtual healthcare space, these are the minimum features we need to have in our product”.
That’s when I had my “Aha” moment and I thought to myself:
“Wait a second, the secret for startups to move fast in the market is to build a product that works with the minimum features and iterate over to produce a better, more polished product, rather than simply planning an imaginary product.”
“Why don’t I apply this methodology to my personal work as well?”
What is MVP
The Minimum Viable Product (MVP) is the first version of a new product that a company builds with just enough features to attract early-adopter customers and validate a product idea early in the product development cycle.
You might be wondering why do companies build MVPs
A company might choose to develop and release a minimum viable product because its product team wants to:
- Release a product to the market as quickly as possible
- Validate a new business idea with real users before committing a large budget to the product’s full development
- Learn what resonates with the company’s target market and what doesn’t
The secret to actually get things done
The secret is to treat your personal work just like how start-ups treat their products. The first step is building MVPs, a product that functions and satisfies the minimum requirement. It doesn’t have to be amazing, fantastic, and flawless. It just needs to be something that works.
With that idea in mind, whether it is writing a paper or finishing a personal project, all we need to do is:
- Put together a draft (actually)
- Make rough edits to meet the basic and minimum requirements
- Iteratively build up to produce a better, more polished work
Remember, you don’t have to build the perfect pot
The MVP strategy addresses the key to procrastination: perfectionism. This is the fear that an individual’s work wouldn’t meet one’s high standard. The MVP method encourages people to start somewhere and iterate from there, which helps break the Perfectionism–Procrastination Infinite Loop.
So next time, when there is a deadline, take a deep breath and tell yourself:
My work doesn’t have to be perfect.
All I need is an MVP.
Thanks for reading — I’d love to hear about your thoughts on procrastination and MVP, so please drop me a note in the comments and follow me to see more stories about tech, career, productivity! : )
