Do the work. What do those three words mean to you?
Here is what they mean to me in this moment. (Note: This post was written in late December 2020 as I worked on a goal to create 12 pieces of content in 12 days.)
Without distraction, get to work on whatever it is I need to make my businesses go today.
The universe has been leading me to this moment; and it’s not like I have not been here before. The concept of turning off and tuning out to be laser-focused on work is not new to me.
I just needed a reminder or three.
There is a book I’ve been re-reading that stresses the importance of getting started. There is a podcast I’ve been listening to and the host says “Just do the work.”at least once an episode.
Add to that the a decision to take on more in 2020 and likely well into 2021, that’s just what it takes to get where I need to be right now.
Turn it off and tune it out.
In I’ve missed you beautiful people from November, I wrote about leaving social media behind for a time. I learned from that experience that I am much better at doing the work, like producing this content, when I am tuned out from as many distractions as possible.
So I shutdown social media, put my phone out of reach upside down, minimize every other app on my two monitors and pull the draft tab for this blog into its own window. This is all I’m looking at on my computer’s two screens right now. I’ve set a goal of 300 words in 15 minutes or less and I think I’ll make it.
Work on the high-value stuff.
By high value, I mean make sure you are producing what your customers and clients want most. What will be of the highest value to them? If you are working on that, success will follow. It just has to.
Right now my work is simple: Produce one piece of content a day for 12 days. That could be writing a blog post or recording a podcast. I’m on day four right now and by the time this actually gets published, I’ll be done or very close to done. (Note: Read “Why it’s okay to fail when you’ve set a big, hairy audacious goal” to learn more about how the 12 pieces of content in 12 days turned out.)
That’s it for me. So what does “do the work” mean to you?