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It's easy to focus when you know exactly what needs to be done.
When you have a project with clear steps, a clear goal drawing you in from a distance.
But after finally achieving a milestone, or accomplishing something, we often say "... OK, now what do I do next?"
Then we're staring at a mountain of 'could dos', each one with its own argument for completion.
I've often faced this kind of issue, so I decided (like I often do) to solve my own problem in hopes that it helps someone else with their own struggles.
What follows are all of the ideas I have about how to choose what to focus on once your top priority becomes a completed project. So you can spend less time analyzing and hesitating, and more time making progress that actually improves your life.
While the truth is: you're never going to be satisfied and completely fulfilled no matter what you accomplish, because every milestone is important, it can still better our lives to accomplish a thing or two.
Let's begin:
1) Don't Chase Perfect, Just Act And Adjust
There's no perfect project, and perfect time to execute it.
You'll do what you do and accomplish what you accomplish when you do what you do and accomplish what you accomplish.
If you're motivated by fear of wasting your time, you'll waste time trying to determine the *best* thing to work on.
As the saying(s) go: 'perfect is the enemy of good/done'.
And while 'measure twice, cut once' is also a popular saying, it's important to remember that the saying *isn't*: 'measure for three hours, and then cut once'.
Make a decision, and use the feedback you're given to decide where to go next.
2) Identify Where You're Currently Stuck or Ineffective
If you want to know what to focus on, figure out where you're currently stuck, or what isn't working.
Ex: You find yourself struggling with public speaking/a specific exercise in the gym/you can't remember the steps to an important process at work
The bigger the pain point, the more likely it is that you should spend your available time addressing it.
3) Assess Your Priorities
The Eisenhower Matrix isn't flashy, but it's tried and true.
What's urgent and important
What's urgent and unimportant
What's non-urgent and important
What's non-urgent and unimportant
It's pretty self-explanatory what might be a good idea to work on there. We can see fires pretty well.
Another way of assessing priorities that I use: Asking what is this dependent on?
If you have a to-do list, ask "what is this dependent on" to figure out what should be your first step.
Ex: You have to write a blog post and it's dependent on an outline, which is dependent on research, which is dependent on generating ideas for a post topic
4) Choose Your Uncertainty And Take What You Get
If you aren't sure where to begin, choose the uncertainty or confusion you're feeling, and take whatever you get.
This might sound airy, or bullshit-ty, but I find that simply choosing and accepting the current circumstances allows the problem some wiggle room to get un-stuck.
Then some ideas begin to trickle in. Your results may vary.
5) Change The Context
I've written about some of this before but try asking yourself "in what context would not knowing what to do be welcome/a benefit/enjoyable" and then see where that taks you.
Like "choosing," it can help get the problem unstuck, partly by making the problem no longer a problem.
6) Use Selective Narcisissm (And Being A Best Friend)
"Illeism" refers to the trick of talking through things in the third-person to think a little more clearly.
Ex: '(Name) has a deadline that they need to meet, so that should be their priority'
While you may not want to do this out loud, or in the presence of others, I've found it to be helpful at times to create a little distance between the us and the confused thought processes that's eating up our time.
Talking about yourself in the third person is more accurate anyway if you subscribe to the idea of anatta, but that's another story.
Another thing that might help is thinking about who your best friend is and then asking what you would tell them to do if they were in your current shoes.
Both of these techniques work to free us from the web of self-talk that lacks perspective in the moments when you really need it.
7) Create Something New To Satisfy Your Craving For Completion
Sometimes when I'm feeling a desire to 'accomplish' something during a stretch of restlessness or confusion, or when I'm running low on time, I try to execute a single creative act.
For me, that's sometimes thinking of and writing just one sentence. For you, it may be something different: maybe drawing, painting, singing, etc.
But when I can say 'at least I accomplished that' it makes it easier to go to sleep knowing something other than work got done that day.
8) Do The Tiniest Step To Solve Your Current Problem
If you're unsure of where to begin a bigger project, figure out what the tiniest step is that you could currently do, and do *that*.
Sometimes that's all that's required to get some momentum behind you, and it could lead you to taking more ambitious action to get done what you need to get done.
9) Create Structure or an Outline
Sometimes, especially when I'm beginning the process of writing something for this website, I get analysis paralysis.
I have a bunch of singular ideas for a piece, and the threads blending into each other lulls me into an inactive sleep.
What helps me escape is when I organize 'like with like' and create an outline so I know which order the different groups of things go in.
Similarly, going to work is sometimes easier for us than spending our free time on our weekends.
At work, we often know exactly what we need to do because there's a guillotine hanging over our heads if we pretend that we don't.
At home, with no Capitalist Grim Reaper casting his shadow over our idle hands, we think 'maybe I should do that ... no, maybe this' etc.
So, one piece of advice is: create habits, routines, or rituals for your home time. Know the essentials you always want to get done.
If you're doing something (or need to do something) at least five out of seven days a week, it's a habitual activity, and it should likely be prioritized. That should be scheduled into your days as if it's coming from the boss that cuts your checks.
Another piece of advice is number 10 on this list:
10) Reverse Engineer It
Ask yourself 'what would need to be true to fail to accomplish the top three things I need to do today'?
Limit yourself to three (because our eyes are bigger than our productivity stomachs) and do nothing else until you've completed those three things.
It's better to go to sleep with no regrets over un-done work than to try to get *everything* done.
Wrapping It Up
Hopefully those aforementioned ten things will help you take action instead of drowning in possibility.
But I have to emphasize a potentially not so inspiring reminder that: no matter what you choose, it's never going to be enough for you.
A checked off to-do will become buried with other inconsequential memories as the new burning priority comes down the pipeline.
That doesn't mean these things aren't worth doing.
We have to do what we have to do when we have to do it. And when we don't, we don't.
It doesn't make it important or unimportant, it just *is*, and we're obligated to execute.
Rather than telling yourself that everything you do is pointless, let yourself have some perspective that, in the end, impermanence will win. And those mountains are really just hills belonging to moles.