The Hay is in the Barn

When I was a competitive runner, I had a coach who used to say: “The hay is in the barn.”

The expression obviously comes from farming. Once the hay is cut, dried, and stored in the barn, the harvest is secure. You can't add to it, and you don't need to worry about rain ruining it in the field. Whatever you've got is what you've got.

My coach was talking about our training. Within a week or so of a big race, there wasn’t anything more you could do. Either you had put in the steady work for months before that, or you hadn’t, and nothing you could do would change that. I found it calming. No more worrying about the plan, just time to execute.

Inside the Box: How Constraints Make Us Better is out today! It has been seven years since I’ve had a book out. In the interim, we had a global pandemic; I became a parent; we went back to the moon; Taylor Swift led the Chiefs to a Super Bowl. A lot has happened.

For part of that time, I was exploring potential book topics; settling on one; generating a 100,000-word document of quotes, stats, questions, study citations, ideas, and observations, and turning it into this single-page structural plan:

And then, of course, writing the book. In the last few months, I’ve also been recording a lot of podcasts, writing articles, and recording videos in the hope of shoving this book into the world. The first adapted excerpt just appeared, in The Atlantic. Others are on the way.

I woke up yesterday thinking: The hay is in the barn.

I think it’s a useful mantra for life in general. There is infinite opportunity to worry about all the things that we might have done. But that won’t change anything. Whatever you’ve got in the barn is what you’ve got. Time to proceed.

Thank you for reading. Inside the Box is out today. If you enjoy this newsletter, I think you’ll love the book. You can find a list of upcoming in-person events here.

I recently made a video about attention and focus, based on chapter nine of the book.

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Until next time…

David