Sometimes I find myself in an anxious state of mind. I’m reactive and not proactive. I feel more like I’m playing whack-a-mole than focusing on truly important things.
In this anxious state of mind, I think about a future where I am organized, free of distractions, and able to focus on the important, but not urgent work that so often gets ignored.
I imagine myself one day arriving at this destination. It always feels like it is just on the other side of the chaotic moment that I am currently passing through, but I rarely arrive at the destination.
To do great work, you don’t have to slog through all the little things before you can do your most important work. Instead, you have to commit to do your most important work first and pay the price for temporarily ignoring the smaller and less important stuff.
Imagine a skilled craftsman working in his shop. You walk through the door and can see him in the back deeply engrossed in his work. You wander up to the counter and he doesn’t move. You think “Doesn’t he notice that I’m here?”. You start to wander and look around and he continues with his work. Then eventually, when the time suits him he looks up and asks if you can come back later in the day.
Now maybe this isn’t good business. You may not want to come back. Maybe he should hire someone to work at the counter. But this is the way that you have to work to do good work. You cannot let something new distract you or pull you away from the most important project you are currently working on.
There is a scene in The Fountainheard, where Howard Rourke starts working as a draftsman for an architect he admires.
Cameron would enter the drafting room and stand behind Roark for a long time, looking over his shoulder. It was as if his eyes concentrated deliberately on trying to throw the steady hand off its course on the paper. The two other draftsmen botched their work from the mere thought of such an apparition standing behind them. Roark did not seem to notice it. He went on, his hand unhurried, he took his time about discarding a blunted pencil and picking out another. “Uh-huh,” Cameron would grunt suddenly. Roark would turn his head then, politely attentive. “What is it?” he would ask. Cameron would turn away without a word, his narrowed eyes underscoring contemptuously the fact that he considered an answer unnecessary, and would leave the drafting room. Roark would go on with his drawing.
The FountainHead, by Ayn Rand
It is easy to start to think of this final state of dedicated focus, or flow, as something that we will get to in the future. Once we reply to the emails, reply to something on Slack, and check our online banking. But to actually work with this type of engagement, you don’t need to have an incredible production system, you need to just be ready to pay the price for it. To let the small fires burn, to maybe annoy a new customer, to miss a message from your boss.
Great work cannot be something that you do when you arrive at a destination, it has to be something you commit to doing above all else.
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