Can't Seem to Get to Your Project? Maybe the Other Work is Just Wanted Distraction.

Most mornings I'm up around 5 or so. I get breakfast, watch a little bit of the morning news, shower, get dressed, lay around checking e-mail on my phone, then turn the phone off, walk the dog and finally sit down at my desk to write. Instead of writing, though, I check twitter and my e-mail again, then write a blog or two, research whatever gadget somebody tweeted about, make some more coffee, read a little bit, all the while the very reason I got up early is slipping through my hands as I allow myself to be distracted. I don't know why our primary project is so hard to focus on while we are completely willing to work hard on other projects. But regardless, the only thing that will make that nagging feeling go away is a little self discipline. You are not going to want to work on that project, perhaps ever. But the project must be completed. What we need, here, is some self discipline. We must shut off our e-mail and web browser, open the document and commit to a couple hours of frustrating work. Normally, within half an hour or so, we have a bit of a breakthrough and are surprised to get quite a bit of work done. The sooner we stop fooling around with distractions, the sooner that project will be done.

Imagine how quickly you'd get the work done if you didn't waste those hours distracting yourself? It if takes me a year to write a book, which it normally does, then I bet it would take me four months with some focus. If I learned the craft of focussing and not making excuses, I could turn out two to three books a year. That's worth the effort, I'd say.

But then again, if I hadn't given in to distraction, I never would have written this blog. Signing off. Back to work.

Can't Seem to Get to Your Project? Maybe the Other Work is Just Wanted Distraction. is a post from: Donald Miller's Blog