attention. There will always be unfinished work and loose ends lying
around to snare your focus. Your time block can feel like a
submersible, where the deeper you commit to your ONE Thing, the
more the pressure mounts for you to come up for air and address
everything you’ve put on hold. Eventually it can feel like even the
tiniest leak might trigger an all-out implosion.
When this happens, when you give in to the pressure of any
chaos being left unattended, it can be a total relief. But not when it
comes to productivity.
It’s a thief!
The truth is, it’s a package deal. When you strive for greatness,
chaos is guaranteed to show up. In fact, other areas of your life may
experience chaos in direct proportion to the time you put in on your
ONE Thing. It’s important for you to accept this instead of fighting it.
Oscar-winning filmmaker Francis Ford Coppola warns us that
“anything you build on a large scale or with intense passion invites
chaos.” In other words, get used to it and get over it.
Now, in anybody’s life or work there are some things that just
can’t be ignored: family, friends, pets, personal commitments, or
critical job projects. At any given time, you may have some or all of
these tugging at your time block. You can’t forgo your power hours,
that’s a given. So, what do you do?
“If a cluttered desk is a sign of a cluttered mind, of what,
then, is an empty desk a sign?”
—Albert Einstein
I get asked this a lot. I’ll be teaching and know that, as soon as I
finish, hands are going to shoot up. “What do I do if I’m a single
parent with kids?” “What if I have elderly parents who constantly
depend on me?” “I have absolute obligations I must take care of, so
what do I do?” These are obviously fair questions. Here’s what I tell
them.
Depending on your situation, your time block might initially