Do One Thing
How I coach team members who are struggling with focus
I am now, as I have been for the last week, blocked. I’m stuck. I can’t get started. I have no plan. I have no idea what this article will be about. I don’t know how, when, or if I’ll be able to publish it. I am devoid of any kind of idea or inspiration, and I can’t see a start, middle, or end. I’m not able to focus and my attention keeps wandering. Halfway through typing each sentence, I have to use every ounce of will to remember what the end should be. Every instinct I have is telling me to go and do something else. Usually, get some kind of snack.
It’s not the first time I’ve been in this situation, and it won’t be the last. The surprise isn’t that it happens, it’s that it doesn’t happen more. Like everyone, I have a lot of competition for my focus and attention. The demands of a full-time job. A long list of incomplete household tasks. A family that would benefit from more attention than I’m currently giving them. A phone in my pocket, beeping and burbling to tell me hundreds of things a day that I’m better off not knowing. Oh, and an ongoing global pandemic. And an impending climate disaster. And my knee’s a bit sore, should I see a doctor about that? Or is it age? Everything spins around in what Dylan Moran memorably described as:
..being in the washing machine of your own…
