Distractions

Realisation and Distractions

Last week I was shocked to get feedback that I had fucked up an important part of my day job. It was important in the context of the work; but one of many such tasks I complete - at a rough estimate, I probably do 1000 of them a year.

Nevertheless, in the context of that one piece of work, it was significant. It affected my professional standing (to a reasonable degree) and made a significant dent in my personal opinion of how I was doing my work. I realised that I was -- and had been, for some time -- accumulating distractions that were cutting into my effectiveness far more than I realised.

I'd also found a reason for delaying a piece of personal work that I was constantly struggling to complete.

The short term fix was obvious and immediate. I took a step back, looked at my distractions, looked how I'd been assigning myself work to do, and considered the underlying worry and fear that I'd let become pervasive. It had seeped into every part of my day job -- and that just wasn't going to be good enough.

I tidied up my workspace, both physical and virtual. Condensed tasks into a single space. Removed any co-mingling of personal and professional work that would appear during my 8-5. Created areas of focus that would allow me to concentrate on what I needed to do each day, and have an easily visible list of my work for each day assert itself into my day so I wouldn't have to think about it.

The reason for putting off personal work was now clear and obvious. I'd been writing a guide on how to do my day job (in essence), but I'd always had doubt, and that doubt was because some of the content was built on principles, not practice. The principles were sound, but I hadn't been practicing them -- and I reasoned that I couldn't in good faith write and sell a guide that I hadn't been living myself.

So I've reverted to notes on what good principle and practice entails, and I'm putting the principles into practice. I'll add notes on what works and what doesn't, add even more notes on coping with mindset and overcomplication, and keep going.

A hint and note to self on the latter part; if I'm struggling to start a task, it's because the complexity of the task is allowing questions in from a part of me that is scared. This requires that I break it down into smaller chunks until the fear dissipates, and progress can resume. There is no other way I can overcome the lizard brain or procrastination on the task, and the task needs to be done on time. That's also an adoption of standards that I can't let slip; if I set a date on a task, and I believe that it is a reasonable or required date that cannot be negotiated away, then the due date is fixed and work is required to complete the task.

Anyway, this post is necessarily oblique but I wanted to write it down. Professional shocks are good for the system, even if they don't feel like it at the time. It gives you the impetus to step back, consider, and re-evaluate what you've let creep into your daily process.

The answer is always to simplify.