Sit on your hands

Hey 🙂

A few years back, my friend Scott said something that I’ve never forgotten.

He pointed out that one of my challenges is that I can turn my hand to a lot of things. Which sounds like a strength, and it is — but it’s also a massive distraction. You end up doing somewhat important things instead of the most important thing.

His advice: if you’re not doing the thing you’re supposed to be doing, do nothing. Sit with the tension until you do the thing.

I got a practical reminder of this just this week.

I went to one of my local coffee houses with one job: sit, write, think. I had my laptop and my Looptimer. I set it, started it, and got to work. The timer is a psychological switch I swear by — when you start it, you’re basically saying to yourself, of course I can focus on one thing for 45 minutes. And yet, somewhere around the 3-minute mark, you feel it. A little twitch. Your hand reaches for the phone before you’ve even thought about it. It’s automatic. We’ve trained ourselves into it.

At some point I got stuck in the writing. And instead of switching tabs or picking up my phone, I literally sat on my hands. I must have looked ridiculous sitting in this café — laptop open, timer ticking, hands underneath me. But that’s what it took.

We don’t like being stuck. We don’t like doing nothing. There are always other things that feel like progress. But sitting on your hands is a physical barrier between you and the distraction. When your automatic reaction becomes sit on your hands instead of reach for the phone, you stay in the work. And when you stay in the work, the work gets better.

This isn’t really about discipline. It’s about replacing one automatic behaviour with another.

Set the timer.

When you get stuck, do nothing.

Sit on your hands.

It’s a simple thing, but it’s kind of uncanny how well it works.

🗣️ 👀

Chris.