Previous: Cool

Today I experimented with something: doing one thing at a time. No list. No looking forward to the next thing. Just the thing in front of me, the thing I could see that needed to be done, the thing I was asking that needed to be finished.

It sounds really obvious—and it is obvious, I agree—but my mind is usually a pile of plans and ideas, washing over each other like salmon swimming upstream to spawn, and the concept of one thing at a time is just a concept and nothing more.

One thing at a time is, relatively, relaxing. There's less stress when only the current team needs to be finished, however simple or difficult it is. If the thread of concentration gets broken for some reason, it is the only thread that needs to be repaired.

Maybe it isn't relaxing in a larger sense, but in a local sense—at the level of getting things done—it's feels more relaxing, even as you're ostensibly doing work.