You Don’t Need to Clear the Decks to Focus on Important Work

You Don’t Need to Clear the Decks((dek) to Focus on Important Work

By Leo Babauta

We’ve all done it: we have an important task to do, and yet we have to do a thousand other things before we can start:

Process email and reply to messages
Make sure we’re up-to-date with the latest news
Pay bills(bil) and check on our bank accounts
Make sure the kitchen(ˈkiCHən) is clean
Check social media one more time
Look up that obscure(əbˈskyo͝or) fact we’re suddenly curious(ˈkyo͝orēəs) about

We’re looking for perfect conditions before we can start to find any focus, before we can launch into that important, meaningful task that we’re committed to doing.

When we’re done with all of that, we decide it’s time to get going with that important task … but first, there’s that one other thing we realized we need to do. Every little task takes importance over this important task.

Try this experiment: commit yourself to doing the one big important task you know you’ve been wanting to do (it’s usually one you can identify easily, because you’ve been putting it off) … and commit to doing it right after you’re done reading this post.

See if you find little things you need to do first, before you can get started. If you have no problem, commit yourself to doing the next most important task (or continuing this one, if it needs several sessions) first thing tomorrow morning. I mean first thing, before you start checking messages or getting ready or taking care of the little things you normally do in the morning.

And then try it every day this week. If you’re like most people, you’ll find a bunch of things you need to do to clear the decks before you can get started.

But here’s what I’ve been reminding myself: you don’t need to clear the decks to get started. You can just launch into the important task.

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https://zenhabits.net/clear-decks/