Around the bends
“Life is more about consistency than intensity. Intensity steals the limelight.”
Dr. Angela Duckworth
...
6:35am, Friday
It must be some biological hack, albeit not in my favour. Since children I’m a light sleeper. This morning during one of the wakings, my toddler was up. Check the time: 4:30am. An hour of trying to settle him back to sleep failed. The day begins.
It’s one of those days today. School event for one child in the morning, appointment for another in the early afternoon. If all goes well, I will get 1 hour at my desk between 10:30-11:30am. Within the coffee window! I’m so close to finishing a first draft of a piece of research for the next skills guide, it might be enough time to get it past the line.
Although I always feel short of time for work on Edaith, I don’t have the admin, paperwork, progress meetings and check-ins that come with my usual workplaces. I have more time for deep work each day compared to any job I’ve ever had, other than when I was working on my PhD. This gruelling process of chipping away at a mammoth task feels familiar.
It took 6 years with two yearlong breaks for maternity leave, the last two years part-time with two children under 4. The sleep deprivation and weight of it all triggered major depressive episodes. But no matter how slow, how meandering, how long it took, some words were drafted or something was done towards it every day possible. Sometimes after hours of tired reading it was just one paragraph typed manically just before it was time to race to daycare.
After the joy of submission, the peer review comments took months of additional work to address. But it got done.
11:22am
The traffic heading back form the school event has meant that instead of having time to go home to work I’m in a café next to the school of my other child that needs to be collected soon to be taken to the appointment. So, it’s 30mins to get something done, not an hour. At least there’s still coffee involved.
I can’t help but think about the story that J.K. Rowling wrote the first Harry Potter book in cafes after long walks to calm her unsettled baby. Toni Morrison, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, would wake up at 4am to write before her children woke up and before heading to her teaching job.
As someone squeezing in moments during the early hours and taking any time possible to work instead of relaxing on evenings and weekends, it makes sense to me how they did what did. Besides their impressive efforts and talent, they had a vision for their work and pursued it within their limitations with unparalleled dedication to consistency. Then luckily, and equally importantly, they persevered through the inevitable setbacks.
4:09pm
I have a small window between arriving home from the appointment and afternoon pick-ups from the bus stop and the daycare.
Earlier I met someone new and was telling them about what I’m trying to do with Edaith –skills guides for the future of work. They said that it could be the next big thing. My reply was I don’t mind how big or small it becomes, as long as it succeeds in some way. I just want to be able to do good work with it that helps people.
1:14pm, Saturday
It’s lunchtime movie time for my youngest. After cleaning the kitchen, sorting out some life admin I have 45 minutes to work.
This morning I couldn’t resist the itch to do some other Edaith to-do’s on my list rather than finishing the section draft. I added a news section to the website and have tried again to solve a problem I am having with Google search showing parts of the website that would ideally be hidden. A Robots.txt file (code) I inserted recently doesn’t seem to be working… or it could be fine but the website hasn’t been scraped again.
6:57am, Sunday
Everyone has slept in so there was time to finish the section draft of the next skills guide I’m working on. Although that was the main goal for this week, I was hoping to have the next section done by now too. It might be past half way already, as long as I don't go down rabbit holes with the research again... likely, that's the fun of it. New goal: next section drafted before school holidays begin.
The youngest is stirring; in a few minutes and there’ll be no work possible again until the lunchtime movie.
7:44pm
There’s a cute board book I’ve read to all my children. It’s a catchy rhyme based on Aesop’s Tortoise and the Hare fable. We can all recite it by heart. Maybe it resonates on another level, like a chorus in the soundtrack of my life. The final line closes:
“Slowly, slowly, around this bend. I always get there in the end.”
Only sometimes I don’t. But I do certainly end up somewhere better than the starting line.
Anything that matters in life, whether it be relationships, health or learning, requires consistency. Over time consistency brings an intensity in outcomes that speaks to quality rather than speed. It doesn't require resources but emerges from dedication and a healthy dose of self-discipline. Mostly it’s embodied by showing up every day and just doing something, anything, towards the goal with the time given. However little.
Then it can be possible to get extraordinary things done, eventually.
(In addition to drafting blog posts).
-T
Kommentare