One thing

A reflection

“I do one thing at a time. I do what’s most important. I complete it.”

When my colleague, Matt, told me this relevatory philosophy he’d stumbled across years ago, his entire demeanor made sense. Matt always carries himself with a patient presence, even when he has a lot on his plate.

I’ve tried to adopt this philosophy myself some, but the I complete it piece can be the most difficult. Even now, I looked up who originally said the philosophy while writing this reflection. Does that count as doing one thing at a time?

I just told my writing partner, I’d do a free-write. Is interrupting my flow to Google something that pops in my mind staying on task if it relates back to the writing?

The quote/philosophy comes from the book The ONE Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results, which is by two people Gary Keller and Jay Papasan.

It’s a good mantra. The deciding what’s most important is difficult for me though.

I have in recent years force accountability hours. I’ve liked those. It’s why I’m writing right now.

I didn’t get out of bed because my husband is talking loudly about real estate to his father who is visiting in the kitchen—he is. It’s a rainy Saturday. The festival I was going to table at to sell my novel was canceled. (The novel is one thing I actually completed).

I got out of bed because every morning at 8 am, I meet Jen on Zoom and we both write. Sometimes I get into flow and the story goes. Sometimes, like today, I feel bogged down by it.

It’s not good enough…I need to get the lead up to that explosive midpoint just right before I write the next piece. Is what I’m trying to do too obvious?

I know I need to get the draft zero down…just do it. If I write a little under 600 new words every day I can finish it by July. My new deadline for myself. Earlier it was December.

My editor says I just don’t know my main character well enough. All my characters though have pieces of me or someone I know intimately in them. I can’t put myself outside myself enough to help it. Maybe I need a therapist to dig down to the piece of Gabe that’s like me.

Gabe is a young Black Vision Catcher, a type of mystical being that holds onto lost dreams and visions we’ve forgotten about in our lives. He’s anxious and overwhelmed, takes on too many obligations, artistic at his core, and just wants to do the “right” thing.

That’s a piece of me, but maybe not enough of me. Maybe I need to get to the core root of over committing. My need to juggle all the things. Writing book two in my series, writing another funny story as a break, marketing book one/establishing my “author persona”, helping nonprofits with their Salesforce—not three soon to be five clients of my own and two sub-contracts, plus building a course for Salesforce’s new nonprofit SKU…plus needing to finally turn in that paperwork for finalizing getting a foster care license. It sounds like more than it is. I have been neglecting a walk and exercise as of late.

It’s the one thing at a time that gets me, defining what’s most important and the completion. It all seems important.

Now I’ve spent the first thirty-five minutes of my writing time, writing this. I will try to get my mind right about book two and carry on. In this moment I will make it the most important thing. I’ll worry about prioritization later in the day. Maybe if I complete that I can live out the philosophy. I’ll be able to do the most important thing and complete it.