Become a time warrior, whose only weapons
are focus and action
A time warrior removes her sword and
dismembers procrastination. And this may be the most important thing she’s ever
learned about winning the war against procrastination: she can always start
small. Start small, and the smaller the better.
Become
a time warrior, whose only weapons are focus and action
The mind makes all future tasks big and
scary. So we procrastination. Even little things, when we imagine doing them in
the future, get distorted and take on frightening proportions. Objects in the
mirror of the future appear larger than they really are. Because the
imagination, when it ventures into the future, always finds the worst case. No
wonder we procrastinate! Thinking and imagining the worst case scares us into
putting everything off. Worry produces the opposite of action. It produces a
chill block of Jell-O where a human heart used to be.
Trembling. Therefore, worry is the ultimate
in dysfunction. It’s a misuse of the imagination. It chills the body.
But if you’re a warrior, you want the body
to be hot. Or at least warm, warm and friendly until you catch even more
enthusiasm for your task [which happens by doing it] and soon you are on fire.
Action is the answer. Action warms the body
into fire. The biggest fallacy there is about making good use of one’s time is
that you have to feel like doing something before you can do it. That you have
to know how to motivate yourself prior to your action. Try this: Have the
action happen first. You can work up a sweat with wild action just by doing it.
Then a funny thing happens. The motivation shows up.
Action
is the answer.
But not always big action. Try three
minutes. Give your task three minutes of your time. [You can address 40
neglected things in two hours this way.] Small actions.
Any tiny action. The smallest acts are like
atoms. They often turn out to be the most important acts of our lives.
So once I identify the big scary imagined
task as a distortion produces by my own worried mind, I want to go small, as
small as possible. What can I do in the next three minutes? Three minutes then
walk. Quit. Bail. Walk away. Barefoot. [If you can, that is. But my experience
is that nine times out of ten I get excited by how easy this thing really was
all along. It was just masquerading as big and scary seen through the lens of
my worst case future.]
And when I say three minutes, that doesn’t
mean you can’t take smaller and split it from three to a minute and a half. Just
do it. And make sure the action is effortless, too. As they say in Zen, effortless
effort. Always the best.
Otherwise we [and I include myself]
ruminate, brood, meditate and wander the interracial halls of self-loathing and
mental fatigues, making up all sorts of mystical stories that keep us fearful
and passive. Dungeons, dragons and always out of action. Now knowing I only
have 1 three-minute commitment I just do the thing I was procrastinating
about! I just make that a policy!
How do I distinguish between waiting
[listening inside for inspiration] and procrastination? If I’m legitimately
waiting for timing to be right and inspiration to emerge on a creative project,
I have no problem waiting. If I’m procrastinating [there is something to do
that I know needs to be done] then I want to identify my next action, just do
that one thing – you know what it is – it’s the thing you’re thinking about
right now. Don’t think in terms of patterns. None of this: “I always” or “I
never” because those globalizing thoughts will never serve you. They will scare
you and make you a pessimist. Keep your life creative and simple” what needs to
be done now in these three minutes? That’s all you ever need to ask, and you’ll
never have anything like procrastination bother you again.
Focus is everything
Push my head under the water and I
experience an increase in energy because I am immediately focused on what I
want to do. I want to get out of the water. So I know exactly what I want to
do. And any time I know exactly what I want to do my energy increases. My
energy increases the same way the sun’s power increases when I take the diffuse
rays and harness them and focus them through a simple magnifying glass and let
the focused ray of sun burn an old dead leaf like a science fiction laser.
When
we focus we are joining the energy that created the world
When we focus we are joining the energy
that created the world. We forget that we can always do that. We forget, and
then we cling to worries and fears and all the mind stuff that keeps us
passive. Soon anger emerges. A vicious circle. But the minute someone calls us
out back to play volleyball or take a swim or climb a mountain or ride a bike,
something happens. We are breathing deeply once again! We are joining the
energy that created the world. Breathe first, then let the mind expand. Don’t
wait for it to happen the other way around.
