It’s first thing in your workday, and you open up your email. There’s a host of messages, old and new, asking for your attention. You also open up other inboxes in social media and the like. You quickly go through them and get a picture of what you need to get done right now.
But where do you start?
You begin one task from an email, but then quickly have the urge to see if there’s something else more important you should be doing. And this problem repeats itself — every time you sit down with one thing, the dozens of others on your mind (and the many potential urgent items that might be coming in as you sit there) are grasping for your attention.
Is there ever any certainty that you’re doing the right thing right now?
Does the worry that you’re doing the wrong thing ever go away?
This is something I’ve grappled with myself for years — I sit down to write (this post, for example), and the nagging feeling from the back of my mind pesters me and asks me to check my email, my financial accounts the calendar or various social media. Quieting this feeling isn’t always easy.
But still, I get the important things done (usually). This comes from a small set of steps I take that help keep the forces of worry at bay.
I’ll lay out those steps in a moment — for now, let’s talk about where this worry comes from.
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