A novelist, a designer, a developer, a business owner, a woodworker, a father, and now I guess, a blogger. Just a small list of the different thoughts that have popped into my head for things I felt like I need to pursue. Do all these things excite me? Sure. Do I believe I will be any good at all of them? Absolutely not. But do I think I can (or should) try them all? Maybe, but I realistically know that it is probably a bad idea, or at least that it would be a long path of wasted time and increased frustrations that will almost inevitably lead to another spell of creative block.
It’s been like this as long as I can remember, my brain feeds on collecting shiny new ideas at every chance each more tempting to obsess over than the last. The result is just a whole lot of started side projects that are unfinished, leaving a nasty sense of dissatisfaction at achieving so little, and failing at so much.
So how do I quiet the noises in my mind down?
I’ve been thinking of a way to organise my thoughts a little bit and realised that the keyword is just that: organise. Having tons of scattered thoughts just running amok in one tiny brain can’t be good or healthy or productive, and so the first step to organise and declutter things is to get a pen and paper (literally or proverbially) and jot down a list of targets or things that I need or want to do, with absolutely zero regard for whether or not they are short or long-term goals. Having things written down in front of me has always helped, but of course it’s in no way a guaranteed measure of success.
Next comes the prioritisation. Let’s not complicate this too much and use a very simple filtering process in the form of 2 key questions:
- Is there enough time and money to do this?
- Will doing it bring you joy?
If the answer to both questions is ‘yes’ then this item goes in the “Doable” list, otherwise it is parked in the “Maybe later”. There is a famous story attributed to Warren Buffet that he once gave advice to one of his employees to highlight only 5 items out of a list of 25 goals, the idea being to only focus on the 5 items, and the remaining 20 go into an “Avoid-At-All-Cost” list, seeing as they are considered time wasters and distractions away from the goals that really matter.
There is some substance to that, but I personally think that the full list of priorities should be a living document that changes with time. We all evolve over time, it is absolutely essential that we accept that our priorities evolve with us too. Make it a point to revisit this list from time to time (say, once a year) and critically assess what’s on it. It would be a solid gauge on how much you’ve grown and changed over time by seeing which items remain unfinished priorities, and which have been completed. But equally important is to assess how the importance of some items change, remove targets which do not matter anymore and add new ones that do.
Focus.
This is critical. Now that a “Doable” list exists, it has become a responsibility to address what is on it. Focus is a muscle that needs to be exercised, it doesn’t come naturally at least to me. I expect that the first tackling the first couple of items on this list will be brutal because I need to force myself to focus on one task at a time. I accept that some new whims and attractive distractions will try to tempt me, but these have to go through the same 2-question filter as above, and if they are added to the list then they will remain on the list untouched until the target at hand is completed.
You need to have only one active task a time, and to grow through the list this is the only way forward.
Accept imperfections
There is no avoiding flaws and even failures, that is also a nasty realisation to accept. Mistakes will be made and failures will be endured, but that is definitely no excuse to let dwelling on them consume our entire world-view and how we perceive ourselves and our value. It’s not easy to unlink failure with our self-worth, but this is definitely one item that will be on the top of my “Doable” list, all else depends on it.