Gitter Done
I originally wrote this article on March 10, 2015.
I have about one hundred ideas for articles I want to write. It’s just a matter of getting my thoughts together and organized into an essay format.
What’s the problem then? The problem I have is from not starting the momentum. The problem I have in getting the momentum started is from not dedicating the time to start the momentum.
If I devoted two hours a day to writing, I would crank out blog articles left-and-right. Instead, I find myself distracted reading other blogs; I find myself commenting on articles in those blogs. My comments can easily be converted to my own blog posts.
Courtney Carver wrote a great article called ‘3 Vital Steps to Conquer Information Overload.’ She invented these three steps: limit the input, create time to process, and limit the output.
Applying Courtney’s steps to my problem, I can limit my blog reading during the day, I can leave blank space (i.e. not reading blogs) in my life to process whatever is going on in my life, and I can limit my commenting on other blogs. This alone is a huge step towards dealing with my problem.
Leo Babauta’s article titled ‘An Addict’s Guide to Overcoming the Distraction Habit‘ reminds us to think about what is really important to us, and to take action in creating a distraction-free space for that which is important.
What’s important to me are my kids, my health and well-being, my home, coaching people, and my writing and self-expression.
Better Things is an article written by Patrick R. Hone in which he gets down-and-dirty about to-do lists. He states we need to take our to-do lists and ask ourselves exactly when are we going to do the tasks:
“You see, when the things you hope to do are on some long wish list of things you hope to do, they are telling you a lie. They are telling you that you that every single thing on there is of equal importance. They are telling you that you have infinite capacity and infinite time. They are telling you everything needs to be there and should, at some point, warrant 100% of your attention. That it is completely possible and reasonable that you will do all of these things and have all the time in the world to do them.
“The beauty of forcing the essential question of “When?” is that it also forces you (and the things) to face a hard and undeniable truth — time is finite. Each day has 24 hours. Six-to-Eight of those you are sleeping. You have many other obligations that will take away from the rest of your waking time — both on your calendar and not. My guess is that for a lot of us, at most and on the best days, we have about 2 hours to honestly dedicate to any of the things on our list. Most days, that is much, much, less.
Now that you are going to make those things part of your day, week, or month by taking a look at your calendar and deciding when you plan to do those things and scheduling those things at a time, you can see exactly how much time you have to work with. Suddenly, you go from having the lie of infinite capacity to the truth of having known constraints. With this knowledge, and only with this knowledge, you can focus on doing better things with that time.”
- Patrick R. Hone
The forth step (added to Courtney’s first three, above) is to gitter done. It’s time for me to actually block out a few hours a day, every day, to write.
Figure out what is important to you and then gitter done.
Warmly,