Last week I told myself I would complete my daily writing before lunch, knowing that my brain turns to mush in the afternoon.
Then, every single day, I found myself looking for, creating and sticking with some sort of excuse to delay the task until the afternoon.
“Let me just empty my inbox”, “I better make a coffee first” and “the kitchen bench could do with a wipe” were some of the common stories/justifications.
Much to my horror the afternoon would arrive, the kitchen bench would be gleaming and, as predicted, I’d feel sluggish, fatigued and like my brain was mush.
Annoyed at my past-self I would pull on every ounce of remaining energy I had left, open a Google doc, mash the keyboard with my meat sticks and produce some truly terrible writing.
“Tomorrow, I’ll do better” I would promise.
Rinse. Repeat.
After a week of this I’m reminded that postponing until the conditions are perfect is rarely a good strategy.
Better to start early, and start small. One word at a time, bird by bird, as a past version of myself once wrote.
Progress, momentum and flow are the results of starting, not the pre-requisites, so what would it look like to behave accordingly?