The Secret To Getting Things Done: Sit Down and Stay Sitting
First published on August 7, 2019
God, it's hard to get things done sometimes. I'm working on a book at the moment (well, two, but that's a story for another time). This book has been on my Warren Buffet list of 25 things to do by XX/XX/XX since I first did one in 2017, and I've been working on it since 2016. I made a deal with myself when I wrote 'Publish Possibility Writing' (my working title at the time) on my list in 2019 that it won't be on my list for 2020. But it's hard.
The last two days of working on it (Friday and Monday) have been some of the hardest. I've felt stressed, anxious, unable to think. I know this is what happens. I know from all the writers I've ever heard talk about the process that there are bits of it that AREN'T FUN. I know from Steven Pressfield that Resistance gets stronger near the finish line.
But that doesn't make it any less hard. And how do I know if it's worth sharing? If this is Resistance or just me wasting energy on a dud project? If the doubt is an accurate picture of me and what I have to say, or just my ego's way of saying 'don't grow so much by doing this that I have to die and be replaced by a different ego'?
Over the first six months of this year, even while working on this book and my other four things for this year, I have been full of ideas. Some have been for me, some for clients, some for fellow participants on Seth Godin's Marketing Seminar. Sitting, feeling incredibly excited about one of them a few weeks ago, I thought. 'Oh wow, even these ideas are Resistance.' Even my new ideas are Resistance. And, even if I say so myself, they are great ideas.
But if I believe in the work of Steven Pressfield - and I do - then I have to remember what he says: that the more Resistance we feel towards something, the more important that thing is for our soul's evolution.
I might be wrong about this book. It might be terrible. And by sharing something terrible, my soul will grow.
I might be wrong: it might get me in trouble with people who disagree with me. And by getting in that trouble, my soul will grow.
It might be boring and no one will want to read it. And, by publishing and sharing something boring, my soul will grow.
And of course I might be wrong about all those things: it might be good, it might speak to people, it might be interesting and funny and engaging. And then my soul will grow.
Or it might be somewhere in between. And then my soul will grow.
One of the key ideas in the book is that you can choose what goes on in your head, far more than you think. And despite that, it takes me writing a piece like that to remember that I can choose to believe that Pressfield is right. When I choose that, then I keep going with this book. When I choose that, I keep sitting down, no matter how hard it is, no matter how hard it feels. Day after day.
'There's a secret that real writers know that wannabe writers don't,' says Pressfield, in The War of Art. 'It's not writing that's the hard part. What's hard is sitting down to write.'
There is certainly something to be said, in the modern world, for flitting around, for being responsive to opportunities and being nimble in our work. But there's also something to be said for commitment. For holding our word to ourselves. For having the force of will to see things through. To sit down, even when we don't want to. To do the hard part, even when we don't want to.
As the distractions get bigger and the world moves faster, sitting down and focusing despite all that might just be the ability that is most needed. If you have that ability, to see what is most important to you to work on and then to sit down, over and over again. And, each time you sit down, to stay sitting until your time is up, you create something.
Maurice Bassett told me a story about his friend Colin Wilson, who realised that if you write 1,000 words a day for a year, you end up with 365,000 words. That's three full-length books.
To do that, you have to sit down and stay sitting.
When will you sit down, and what will you do when you are there?