Now

Nike was on to something.  The three words the brand coined together as their famous tagline always plays back as the answer to my lethargy - just do it.

The simplicity and straightforwardness of it makes us question is efficacy.  Surely, getting things done can't be that simple.  After all, we're all just so busy and tired and there are so many other things demanding our attention.

When we look for the answer to the question, how can I do this thing I really care about?, the last thing we wan't to hear is just do it.  

- Just do it how!?

- Just do it.

If there's one thing I've learned about working on my passion projects, it's that the hardest part is getting started.

Our brain is good at coming up with all sorts of things to do other than the thing we've been saying we'll do 'someday'.

The perfect example for me is writing.  If I say that I love writing so much, then why do I ever struggle to find the motivation to do it?  Why do I go down that rabbit hole that is the interweb for an hour before I execute my first key stroke?

What a lot of us are missing is our ability to carry out deep work.

It only makes sense why it is becoming harder for people to be able to concentrate on one task for a long period of time.  These days, there seems to be more distractions, tighter deadlines, and a multitude of little tasks to do.

It's these little tasks that we really need to be aware of.  If not careful, they can trick us into feeling productive.  This is why sometimes at the end of long day you look back and wonder why you didn't accomplish what you wanted to on that big project, but you did however, manage to nearly empty your inbox.

Another reason why we're not getting our projects done may be due to us never putting ourselves first.

Have you ever noticed how much of your time you spend working for others' agendas versus your own?  The bulk of your time may likely be spent on fulfilling the requests of others, especially at a typical work place where you work full time.

In this case, schedule time for yourself.  Consider writing it on your calendar.  Any time that you give to yourself and to your goals is better than no time at all.  If you give yourself just five minutes a day for a year, that's about 30 hours - it adds up.  Or, you may find that you can give yourself one hour per week, say on a Saturday perhaps.   The more time you can chunk together, the easier it'll be to accomplish deep, concentrated work.
 
It can be easy to forget about our future selves too.  The more you put off now, the more you'll have to do later.  Be good to your future self by sharing the load.  What can your 'right-here-right-now' self do to lighten the burden of your future self? 

So this is why we should heed the well known advice of 'Don't put off tomorrow what you can do today.'  When we just jump in and do it, we figure it out as we go.

We know that the feeling of accomplishment is our reward once we complete our work, but when we do the work that truly calls to us, we find that the reward isn't only at the completion, but also in the doing.






"Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself.  Each day has enough trouble of its own." - Matthew 6:34