Mementum

Do your highest leverage tasks first. In the morning, right when you get started.

If you read The Four Hour Work Week or any other tome on personal effectiveness, then you know this. It’s how you build up momentum for the rest of the day. It’s when you’re most energized and alert.

Write first, check email later, deal with bullshit last. Often, this works.

But sometimes it doesn’t.

Sometimes I stare at the screen and that blank son of a bitch stares right back. Silent, mocking, bright.

Or maybe I’ve already knocked out my usual few hundred words of garbage, but the real writing has refused to start. The engine is revving but the car is going nowhere.

My personal doomsday.

I’m stuck, I’m pissed, and I can’t get out.

Here’s what I do.

I back out, all the way. I remove my corpse from the bloody confines of whatever Writing imprisoned me and GTFO for a few minutes.

It’s called a retreat.

No, it’s not a defeat.

And in this moment of complete surrender, I refuse to feel bad about myself, because I’ve survived and I will attack once more, harder.

I keep that Writing out of my head for a long time. Usually a third or half a day.

I do this because I’m not a nihilist. Because a day of poor writing doesn’t feel good. Because there’s no use beating a dead horse.

And at that moment in time I don’t need negativity. I need to take down some other, lesser, easier tasks unrelated to the Writing. I need them because they give me momentum. They remind me that I’m a finisher.

They help me pick up speed.

So after a period of self-loathe, I feel good about the retreat because those little tasks give me a running start.

And some walls are easier to climb when you have a running start.

So when the writing doesn’t come, I back off and divert my attention. I start with baby steps and get up to a sprint. And then I try the Writing again at full speed, feeling good.

And if that doesn’t succeed, tomorrow is a great day for winners too.