Today I got coffee with a friend at 6:30am. It was awesome, I always love catching up with this friend, he’s actually my marathon training partner, so we always have a lot of good things to talk about.
But it delayed my daily creative practice of writing every morning. I mean, I’m still writing this morning, it’s 9:30, currently, it’s just later than I normally do it. Normally, I get up between 6:30 and 7, go through my brief 15–20 minute morning routine and then I sit down and write.
I’m not upset about my morning being shaken up by this or anything, that’s not at all what I’m trying to get across, but I noticed something interesting upon getting back to my studio after getting coffee with this friend, I sat down, at 9:00am and started watching a Youtube video. I never do that, I’m normally writing by about 7 and then getting into the day’s work by 8.
At least, recently, that’s how I’ve been since implementing this daily practice of writing, of starting my day off with doing something creative and shipping the work first before doing anything else. That practice of doing the work that matters puts me in the headspace to be a creator, not just a consumer, and it jumpstarts my productivity for the day.
This morning, I didn’t write first thing and I was tempted to go down the Youtube rabbit hole which would have inevitably eaten up at least an hour if not more of my time. Time that is incredibly precious in this season of life because I have more work to do, good work, important work, work that matters, but work nonetheless, than I have ever had in the history of my business. I can’t afford to lose an hour to mindless scrolling, ever really, but certainly not right now.
And the temptation when I realized what I was doing was to just jump right into my list of things that I need to get done today. “I’m already getting a late start at the to-do list, so I better get at it!” That’s the thing that was running through my head.
But I had to pump the breaks, back up for a second and remind myself that doing this, doing the work that matters is the only thing that keeps me creative. This is what keeps my reality aligned with the type of person that I want to be and I can’t afford to drop that ball.
When being a creative person who ships the work consistently is the main priority, you become exactly that, a creative person who ships the work consistently.
Now, with that, I do have a lot to get done today, and in writing this and hitting publish in 30 seconds, I’ve accomplished my goal of being a creative person. Then I’ve got to go close that car deal that I talked about in yesterday’s post.
Thanks for reading. Much love.
Peace.Chas
