Overwhelm is the enemy of craft. The rush, the deadline, the stress. On it goes. Fear underlies this. What is the fear? What if I miss the deadline? Will I be mocked? Get a bad review? Fired?
How can we beat this?
Deeply concentrated doing is the antidote.
Concentration requires prioritization - a decision. What will I do; what will I not do.
I almost said joyful doing. But joy is an effect, a symptom, a result. Most work is not joyful in the moment. But it is concentrated.
Said another way, the blocker to concentration is agitation, anxiety or non-calm doing. Typically it’s the pull - like a riptide in otherwise calm waters - of all the other things.
Sustained improvement depends on the choice of activity. This choice, made well, describes the shape of a steadily upward sloping curve. In Calculus terms, the derivative should trend positive for any random sample of points taken along that curve. Satisfaction comes later; think of it as a large area under the graph.
How do we ensure the curve slopes ever-upward? I think a good way to think about this is caring and love. And the way to know one is operating this way, is through an obsession with details - even those that seem peripheral.
Here’s a small example. At the local the gym this morning a very strong guy was doing bench presses. Many sets of them. Clearly he works hard at this. When he’s done he gets an antiseptic wipe. I might have thought he’d be rushing to get to the next lift; cramming it all in quickly! Nope. Instead he proceeds to almost lovingly wipe the bench every spot. Like he was shining his car. He spent probably 45 seconds wiping it down.
Find love in the details that seem not to matter. After all, they do.