It was 4:45 PM when I realized the day was gone. In the sense that I’d accomplished exactly none of what I’d planned. Worse, I’d somehow created couple of brand new tasks for myself.

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This morning had started differently. I’d told myself: productive day. Structured. Three items. Simple. I was itching by 7 AM to get started on it, but I held back. Relaxed breakfast over conversations; the newspaper; that next chapter from the book I’d been meaning to finish. “Take it slow” - I said to myself - “The day will be there. No commitments today. No interruptions ahead.”

In fact, I leaned in a bit extra-hard on taking it slow: had an early lunch, brunch-ish. Went through HackerNews while I waited for the geyser to do its thing. A bit of chitchat after the shower while L got dressed to head out.

By now, it was around 1300. The day, the uninterrupted expanse of time, ahead of me to start picking off the work-items one by one.

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But right before starting, I sent a text to my CA, quickly checking on pending tasks on their end, something I had been meaning to for the last couple of days,

Big mistake. He replied back almost instantly; asking for some year-old challan or something.

And now it had suddenly become a conversation, an engagement I had not planned for.

Now, if only I had put my phone to DND or flight mode or focused mode or otherwise ignored his reply, I would have been fine. But having seen the message, it was tough to resist replying. Anyway, it was couple hours later and I found myself on that chain: the response. The follow-up. The confusion. The first call. Further texts. Second call. Looking through old communications in my Gmail for the said challan, trawling through my G-drive. Trying to log on to the MCA site. And failing. All the stuff I had not planned for.

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Somewhere during all of this nonsense I noticed a missed call from LT sir. I had been helping him navigate the online parts of his own journey to apply for a fresh passport and today was his appointment at the passport office at 1430. His missed call to me was at 1440. There were a few messages and a photo of something scribbled on the back of an official looking document as well, right after the missed call notification in WhatsApp.

And so I called back. And thus begun the round two of unplanned set of tasks.
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By 4:45 PM, I realized most of the day had evaporated. I hadn’t touched my original three tasks. Hadn’t been able to help LT sir. And now finding the challan was somehow also on my to-do list.

I spiraled a bit. Watched YouTube trailers. Late-night show clips. The kind of thing you do when you feel like the day is gone and you’re about to disappear into that familiar downward spiral.

Then I remembered something: No drama. The catastrophe isn’t real.

It helped. Enough to pull me back. So I buckled up and decided to move the needle even just a tiny bit. Even if it was just reading some of my notes for a small piece I wanted to write. So, that’s what I did.

20 mins later, I found myself sitting down with my pen and notebook, writing this draft. By the time I finished, I was back in my groove. The day ended up not feeling like a waste. Quite the opposite in fact: I got couple of other stuff done, including the draft for this post!

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This is another bit I have noticed: 

Just like success begets success, or work begets work. It’s weird, but you can complete something totally unrelated to what you meant to do - take out the garbage, review your notes, finish a chapter - and it somehow creates this momentum that carries you into the next thing. You finish that, and the momentum builds.

And that momentum, that magic of action, that is something! Midway writing this draft and the rest of the day had already started to feel longer than it did at 4:45 PM. Of course it wasn’t. But something shifted. You get in that zone - the flow. And it started because I got one small thing done: just reviewed my notes.

It works especially when you’re blocked on something bigger. Stuck this week, this month, stuck in general. Blocked on making the next move.

At times like these, prioritization doesn’t matter. Forget strategy. Forget picking the right thing to do. Just do anything you need to get done. Move. However little.

Because once you move - even if it’s sideways - you start seeing the direction you actually need to go.

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The 3 original things I was supposed to do? Two of them are still pending. And my CA still needs his document.

But I am not currently bingeing YouTube videos about best hand-to-hand combat-scenes or whatever. I am currently doing this. And that, it turns out, is enough.

Amit
(building NextFive)