Thursday April 3, 2025 // Late Afternoon
It’s a rare 3:00 PM hour where I’m by myself. I do have to go soon, however, for the moment I’m free of any parenting, work, or spousal responsibilities. So I show up here. To one of those repeated tasks on my to-do lists that hardly ever get completed – “SOM Writing”.
I have a reminder in OmniFocus to do this each week. It resets each Monday morning at 5:00 AM. Recently I added a 30-minute time block to my calendar at 7:30 AM each Thursday morning – a time when I’m occupied at work. But it’s on my calendar and I get an email to do it and, hey, three out of the last four weeks I’ve managed to get something out the door. It’s kinda working for now and I’ll take it.
I’ve spent a lot of years now meditating. Just a few minutes typically. I’m talking 3-5 minutes. Sometimes it’s just one solid minute. Other times I’ll go 10-15 minutes. I typically use the Calm or Headspace apps. Anyway, after all this time, I’m finally starting to notice some little things about myself. One thing is “time blindness”. Not “time blindness” in the way that I don’t realize how long I’ve been doing something. Time blindness in the sense that I believe something will take longer than it does. I see 8 minutes free, like right now, and decide I can’t get anything done in that time. So I’ll check my email, or scroll, or bug one of my friends with a text.
But I decided, very recently, that instead of chaulking those 8 minutes up to being a loss, instead I’ll at least start something. Even if I don’t finish, which I hateeeee, at least I made progress.
Take this writing for example. In the before times, ain’t no way I would have popped Google Drive open. There’s not enough time to fully write, proof, and post this. Today, 8 minutes after starting this, I’ll have close to 350 words written. That’s 350 more words that’ll be put out into the world that weren’t there before. And these 350 words, hopefully they’ll motivate someone to do the same.
– Josh // Trying to push
Related Reading: What Are You Putting Off?