It’s the beginning of the week, and I once again have a bit of dread. This has nothing to do with my week ahead, rather the vagueness of me trying to recollect everything that was in motion from the previous week to keep momentum going.
One strange quirk of an ADD brain like my own, which may or may not be just like yours, is that it feels like every week I start over. I am at a bit of a loss to remember what needs my focus. It’s like I’m so present or something that I’ve lost track of any progress from last week.
This quirk in my thinking has also lead to some environmental adaptations, some that I’ve necessarily mastered and others that I am still working to master.
For example, I am very gifted at starting new habits. Habits allow me to skip past any need for consistent memory, as I simply run the program. I wake up, have my glass of water, meditate, stretch, and journal every morning. These habits when started pick up their own momentum and I’m carried through daily.
Rules are great as well. “When I eat at a restaurant, then I order a veggie dish.” These are protocols that allow you to not need to have any other historical context. You simply execute the program.
I’ve noticed something else which seems to create a bit of a challenge and that is the idea of using the “scheduling” feature on social media, or emails is a double edged sword.
I schedule something and it’s smart because I have the next 3-5 newsletters let’s say queued up to go out. And yet the problem with scheduling is that I am very disconnected from inputs to outputs. I don’t get any dopamine rush from having published. I don’t really check any stats and I don’t do much browsing on social media. And so I get the benefit and joy of writing and creating but not that second benefit of dopamine from my publishing. This disconnects my efforts and rewards in a way I’m not sure is that helpful.
This happens with meetings as well. People want to schedule meetings in the future and you now says “Yes that sounds good” but then you then, says “Wait what is the meeting for again?”
The fix is to be more spontaneous.
Tell people, “Hey I’m available now, why not now?”
Write and ship the post immediately.
So, as an adaptation, you learn to learn and take action very quickly.
My work, and my learning happen in intense bursts. I once remember a friend noticing this about me when I decided that I wanted to set up meetings with 20 new people in Austin as I had just moved there.
I believe it was only took about a week and I had all of my meetings set. He told me that this was not normal, and yet to me it felt very easy. Somehow it’s easier for my brain to simply get it all done at once, now, than do it slowly over time.
So, a good model for thinking about this is that it’s the Lion’s way of working. If I picture myself more like a Lion on the Sahara, the picture gets a bit easier. The Lion isn’t thinking about last week, last month… Those days are gone.
He’s got sharp skills he knows how to employ, the nails come up immediately upon need. He might find and feast on multiple pray in quick succession. And I suppose on some level his reason for inaction is that he is full. He’s not snacking every hour. Perhaps that’s more like the way of a sheep or cow, just constantly nibbling on grass. They move from field to field slowly over time. Which isn’t a bad method either! It’s just a different adaptation.
So these are my adaptations, or inborn traits, around work, which I often try to change and find it difficult to make any progress on.
The way of working like a lion:
Forget the schedule of the past
Use habits and rules to your advantage
Connect inputs to outputs (something I’m failing at)
Allow yourself downtime, the ability to rest in between knowing that you will do what is needed when it’s time to hunt.
How about you?
xx David
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