Back to work, please
~ thinking about a thing is not the same as doing something about a thing, unless it’s the one thing that will change everything
Yesterday, for a while, I wasn’t thinking about a thing, and I wasn’t doing anything about any thing.
For a creative person, looking out a window might qualify as productive work.
My head was busy.
My body wasn’t moving.
Call it reflection.
Or call it doing no thing at all.
That’s me.
And we?
We buy-buy into those devices, distractions, and delusions designed to help us “focus.”
Yet somehow, we drift further from the thing we meant to do.
That’s called planning.
Also known as an executive retreat.
But I don’t want to retreat.
I want to advance.
And here’s the strategy:
if we don’t do it, we don’t have to do it over!
But then, we’ve done nothing.
Even the most primitive bot, running on the simplest code, will beat us to the finish.
It’s not about automation, is it; it’s about abdication.
Somewhere along the way, we traded action for analysis, follow-through for frameworks. We tell ourselves we’re efficient, strategic, forward-facing, but too often, on most days, we’re just stalling.
Transferring skills from one part of life to another isn’t complicated, but it is deliberate.
We don’t stumble into competence.
We carry it with us.
We reshape it.
What made us excellent at one thing can help us conquer the next, but only if we do the work.
Instead, we rehearse. We over-plan. We talk a good game. And then we’re out of time. Nothing finished. Nothing fixed. Nothing learned. It’s time to get back to something basic.
Planning time is over, we need an act. Of being active. Of doing.
It’s not about automation.
It’s about abdication.
Somewhere along the way, we traded action for analysis, and follow-through for frameworks. We imagine ourselves efficient, strategic, future-facing, and yet most days, we’re stalling.
Transferring skills from one area of life to another isn’t complicated, but it is deliberate.
We don’t stumble into competence.
We carry it with us.
We reshape it.
What made us excellent at one thing can help us conquer the next — but only if we do the work.
Instead, we rehearse. We over-plan. We talk a good game. And then we’re out of time. Nothing finished. Nothing fixed. Nothing learned.
It’s time to get back to something basic.
An act. Of being active. Of doing.
No theorizing.
No tabulating.
No rehearsing.
Just showing up. Again. And again. Armed only with muscle memory and borrowed courage from the last hard thing we survived.
Because no matter how fancy your thinking gets, if you don’t act, you’re just another distracted human, watching the robot pass you by.
Heads down.
Butts up. Elbows too.
Let’s go, eh!
Yesterday’s Canada Day? Call it an off-site planning session.
Break is over.
Today? Back to work.
Back to doing.
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This is a great call to taking action, thanks Mark