Preface — Sharpen The Sword
Using a blunt knife gets the job done but a clever person takes time to sharpen the edge first.
As a perfectionist, I’m deeply into the details. Progressing sequentially from one step to the next with a disturbing obsession over ritualised practice. Devoutly praying to the deity of order, process and habit I often find myself spending hours agonising over a single paragraph (I call this, going down the rabbit hole). These practices worked up until a point. The point at which life and deadlines rained all over my orderly parade. Sacrificial offerings of sleep, hand-picked social engagements and quality time with loved ones were marginally rewarded. Stress was my new bedfellow and it was at best a blanket stealing bed hog and at worst a life sucking parasitic monster (Dramatic? Possibly….. Accurate? Yes).
Working smart instead of just hard goes against most of my natural tendencies and let’s be honest all of my work habits. Everyone’s brain works differently but for me, I imagine my brain as a complex machine full of whirring gears which sometimes get stuck (which I usually refer to as a brain fart). Most of the techniques used to ‘sharpen the sword’ initially caused my brain to get stuck mid process and play a tiny feedback loop during which I would freeze up and make some prolonged verbal sound like “ahhhhhh……………..”.
Breaking habit is effortful and initially time consuming but in the long run it equates to mastery and let’s be honest who doesn’t love the sound of that, Productivity Master, yes please! Think of this as an open source play book which can be adapted in whatever way pleases you. Everything is based on science, from across multiple disciplines, distilled here from my brain and hopefully you can make some of it work for you.
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