Start at the beginning

By Scott Sambucci | January 4, 2021

 After holidays every year, I feel disappointed that I didn’t get all the projects done I wanted during the break. I feel anxious about jumping back into the flow of work.

It’s January 4th. The Internet is slow. Zoom keeps cutting out. Slack isn’t working. It’s cold and rainy. If ever there are reasons to cut back, to make excuses, to choose inaction, today is the day.

If you’re not sure where to start, the beginning is always a good place.

(FYI – You can watch the video version of this post here on LinkedIn.)

Start the morning… 

I woke up at 3:57am – it’s like my body knew it was time to start the 4am club again.

Morning Pages. Coffee. 7.5 minutes of meditation. Pour myself coffee #2 then into the office.

Start the project…

I had a decision to make – do I dive into email, worried about messages I missed over the past three days, or do I stick to the commitment I made to myself this year?

It took fortitude to keep the laptop closed and finish two chapters of the book I’m reading. Then avoiding the open browsers tabs to instead crack open Evernote to start the new book project.

I knocked out 1800 words, starting with the sentence – “Why write this book?” It won’t make it into the final draft, but it was a place to start.

Start the training…

I hit the pool at 7am for 2000 yards. Getting out of the pool is worse than getting in – the rain soaked my towels and dry cloth. Sloshing to the car to get home in time to help with breakfast.

Skipping butter in my coffee to save 100 or so calories. Scaling back to eggs and a quarter cup of sour cream from the breakfast burrito I’ve been having almost every morning since mid-October.

Preparing my snacks for the rest of the day. Measuring out quantities so that I can track calories consumed today.

Organizing my gear so I can hit the garage for workout #2 this afternoon.

Start the parenting…

Negotiating with my son about brushing his hair.

Slicing a green apple at just the right thickness, and slicing just the right quantity that it’ll get eaten as a counterbalance to the frozen pizza cooking in the oven for breakfast.

Arguing about logging onto his class portal so I can see which assignments are due today.

Start the husbanding…

Standing in the garage negotiating with the service tech about a cash discount for the new hot water to replace the one that conked out on New Year’s Eve.

Talking through our schedules for the day with Lena – who has meetings when, who can be here when the hot water heater gets installed later, what to do if the tree guy decides that the rain isn’t too bad and he can trim the broken branches hanging from our cottonwood.

Start every day…

Choosing to take action. It’s the first day back in the new year, but it’s just another day – day to make a choice about what actions to take, what choices to make.

Just do right now. Pick one action, one task. Do that task well and move to the next.

Focus on Now now; worry about Later later.

You got this.

-Scott