Apps like Routinery are remarkably effective at getting you to move through such routines. They take the things that need to be done and present them as sequential stacks of concrete, playable next actions, eliminating the need to decide and figure things out. You simply begin, follow the steps, and watch yourself move forward.
It works.
Until the thing that needs to be done is, for lack of a better word, complicated.
Writing the article that has been sitting in your head. Making the YouTube video you keep intending to make. Applying for the better job. Building something that does not yet exist.
These things can remain undone for weeks, even while everything else seems to be getting done.
This is because not all progress can be reduced to next actions. Sometimes, the next actions are obvious. But sometimes, they aren't.
You sit down to write and realise you don't yet know what you are trying to say. You begin working on a video and discover that the structure isn't clear. You decide you want a better job but haven't figured out which opportunities are worth pursuing.
The problem isn't just a failure to identify next actions. It is also a failure to recognize and accept that the next actions require discovery, and that process of discovery require forms of engagement recalcitrant to systematization.
Consider the process of building an unfamiliar app for your company. (A feat that might seem easy until you start building one.)
There may be plenty of things that can be turned into next actions, but there will also be moments when the path forward is unclear. And at such moments, the requirement for progress isn't merely another task list of next actions. It is the willingness to sit with the discomfort of not knowing.
To think. Research. Experiment. Reconsider. Unravel the problems, until eventually, the fog obcuring the next actions clear and “I don't know what to do” becomes “I now know what needs to happen next to make the app work.”
This distinction matters because the resource required to realize progress on endeavours that raise seemingly impenetrable resistance isn't merely effort.
It's attention. Focus.
A resource often treated as though readily and automatically available.
The reality is you can have several things that matter to you and still give very little meaningful attention to any of them, let alone effort or focus.
The problem becomes even worse when those things compete with one another.
Should you write your blog post? Should you work on your YouTube video? Should you apply for those jobs? Should you build the app?
You ruminate and remain transfixed in a coccoon of indecision, feeding resistance without quite realizing it.
Before long, the discomfort of deciding what deserves your attention becomes a reason to give attention to anything but the things weighted as important.
To remedy this, make the endeavour continually obvious.
Choose ONE Prime Project, and agree on an implementation intention.
Say, for example: give attention to building the app for 90 minutes on workdays immediately you seat at your workdesk.
The purpose isn't necessarily to complete something in those 90 minutes. It is to give the project your attention.
If the next actions are obvious, the effort to apply becomes to execute.
If they aren't, the effort becomes to remain with figuring things out. To think. Research. Explore. Untangle.
The work of a particular session may be producing something tangible or it may simply be turning uncertainty into clarity. As along as attention was accorded to the project, both are progress.
You may ask: Just one project? But I have more than one project. What about other projects?
You certainly do, and you will continue to.
But the idea isn't to disregard other projects. Its to ensure you bring you self back to at least one project (preferably the one that counts) over and over again. The other projects can take turns with whatever time remains after your prime project has received its attention.
Apps like Routinery have a place in all this. Remember, they are remarkably good at getting you to move through routines. So an effective approach is to use them to build the routines that repeatedly nudge you towards giving attention to the endeavours that raise the highest resistance but that, when given sufficient attention, have the greatest potential to make the biggest difference.
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